Ars Magica -- Fiat Lux, Part I
Apr. 18th, 2005 01:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cthulhuchanOriginally written for Kardasi-san's From Dusk 'till Dawn FQF, seventh wave, Ars Magica is my favorite fic at the moment. Now if Cthulhu-chan would just do a decent Snape-imitation for me I'd be thrilled. The good news is I've got about 2000 words of Ars Magica: Bellum Umbrae written. I'll prolly post a snippet or two later this week.
Pairing: HP/SS
Rating: R, I really don't think it's obnoxious enough to justify NC-17
Genre: Drama
Warnings: Adult Language, Sexual Situations, Non-con, Character Death
Disclaimer: I wish I owned the characters. Harry would have relatives who cared for him and Snape would have some closure. Alas, Harry and Snape belong to J. K. Rowling, primarily, as well as Scholasitc and Warner Brothers.
Beta: My most beloved goddess LegacyLady who not only beta'd but kept a copy so that when I discovered mine was corrupted saved my ass. Also many thanks to Annastrianna, even though due to computer problems I lost her beta work. I suck. They rock. The end.
Dedication: To LegacyLady. Thank you so much for keeping an extra copy around. You totally rock.
Challenge: John Donne -- "No man is an island."
Ars Magica
Primus:
Fiat Lux
"You can have my husband over my broken, bleeding corpse."
Harry Potter stood at the foot of the hospital bed, wand pointed directly between Cornelius Fudge's eyes. It was obvious to him that there wasn't a person in the room who didn't believe that the Boy-Who-Lived wouldn't splatter the Minister of Magic all over Hogwarts' Hospital Wing. The Aurors with Fudge hesitated, caught between their loyalty to the Minister and their fear of the rage that had the Man-Who-Just-Defeated-Voldemort's eyes literally glowing with barely suppressed power.
Fudge snorted, staring into those eyes as he called his bluff. "Mr. Potter, spare the dramatics. Severus Snape is a known Death Eater and comes from a family of known supporters of the Dark Lord. The law the Wizangamot passed is very clear -- he will go to Azkaban to await trial, like all of the others."
"By that law, you will have to arrest me for being a supporter of Voldemort, too. After all, I am a member of the Snape family." Harry's wand didn't move, though his lips twitched in a sardonic smile. After facing down Voldemort, an ineffectual wanker like Cornelius Fudge was hardly enough to rattle his nerves. "Are you going to arrest the Boy-Who-Lived?"
"Don't be ridiculous, Potter. You couldn't possibly be married to Snape. Nothing has been filed at the Ministry. I would have known."
Albus Dumbledore, for once looking every minute of his one hundred and fifty-plus years, finally managed to limp his way down the aisle of beds to sit at Snape's side. One of his twinkling blue eyes had already been replaced with a madly swirling orb similar to Alastor Moody's, but it would take a while before Pomfrey would have the time to regenerate his missing arm.
"Cornelius, is this all really necessary?"
"All known Death Eaters and their families are subject to this. Unless you can prove that Snape really is... married... to someone like Potter here, whom we all know was against Voldemort, I insist that he be taken away."
"Don't you fucking --" Harry hissed.
"Harry, please --" Dumbledore's voice cut him off. "It's simple enough."
Dumbledore gently shook Snape, rousing the injured man on the bed. "Severus? Severus... come on now. There we are. I need to ask you a question."
"Hmmnnnngh?" Pained black eyes opened, confusion painting clouds of uncertainty over their depths. "He'masr?"
"Yes, Severus. Harry says that the two of you are married. Is it true that he's your husband?"
Snape's lashes lowered, the lead weights pulling them down almost visible to the outside observer. "H'sbnd. Mmmn."
The eyes closed as Snape fell back into unconsciousness.
"Well then. That was clear enough, I think."
"Clear enough for what?" snarled Fudge, leaning forward slightly. Harry pressed his wand lightly against the man's forehead, baring his teeth in a silent snarl.
"For this..." Dumbledore waved his free hand and a thick ledger appeared before him, flipping open to a page somewhere near the middle. "Ah, yes. Here it is -- I am sorry, Cornelius, but if Mister Potter and Professor Snape weren't married before, they certainly are now."
"What is that?"
"The Hogwarts Marriage Register." Despite his injuries and the carnage that surrounded them from the final battle, Albus Dumbledore sparkled with good humor. "I'm sure you're honored to be listed as one of the witnesses to the marriage of Severus Aurelius Snape and Harry James Potter on this day."
"Let me see that."
The book floated past him to hover beside Fudge. Even upside-down, Harry could see it written with florid whirls in garish red-gold ink. Fudge sneered and the heavy tome snapped closed.
"This can't be legal."
"Oh, it is quite legal, Cornelius. This is Scotland, you know."
Fudge glared at him and Harry smirked. That was what he'd been counting on, after all. "We acknowledged the relationship, thus, it's legal."
"Ludicrous! Not even Muggles would do something so ridiculous!"
"They don't. They changed the laws years ago; but here in Wizarding Scotland, they have held to its Irregular Marriages most tenaciously." Dumbledore smiled. "My parents were wed this way, you know. My mother would have ended up married to Kieran Bulstrode otherwise."
Fudge turned red. Then purple.
Harry's smile didn't quite reach his deadly eyes. Neither did he lower his wand. "Get. Out."
"Gentlemen!" Fudge turned to address the Aurors. "I want every Slytherin here arrested and taken away."
The Aurors stared at him. Then they stared beyond him, to the seething Boy-Who-Lived.
"Just try it and see how far you get." Harry's scowl was vicious. "We took down Voldemort without your help. Don't think we can't take you."
"Is that a threat, Mister Potter?" Fudge's eyes met his and the man looked away with a shudder. Harry's smile was rimmed with ice even as he glared hotly down the length of his wand.
"I don't make threats, Minister, they're a waste of my time. But I promise you that if you come after us again, I will bury you and hold an annual ball atop your grave."
"Don't think you're going to get away with this, Potter. I'll not have the next Dark Lord arising out of Hogwarts."
"Dark Lord?" Power crackled along Harry's arms, throwing off shards of brilliant light. The Aurors with Fudge backed away. Fudge blanched, but Harry had to give him credit for holding his ground. "You gravely misunderstand me, Cornelius Fudge. For now, however, I suggest you leave, without Severus and without the Slytherins."
Fudge glared at him for a moment longer before backing down. He snapped his fingers at the Aurors and the small group swept out of the room, shoving the injured and able-bodied alike out of their way.
"Don't you think that was a bit much, Harry?" Dumbledore's voice was gentle.
Harry finally, finally lowered his wand and the exhausted trembling that he'd only barely kept at bay flooded through him. "Headmaster?"
"You do realize that once Severus realizes that he's gotten married with only the most dubious of consent, that there will be Hell to pay."
Harry barely heard him; he was too busy trying not to collapse onto a floor that already housed the people there had not been enough beds for. He waved his wand vaguely at a dropped piece of bandaging, transfiguring it into a small stool so he could finally, finally, finally just sit down.
"Harry? Are you listening?"
"Not really." Harry leaned back, closing his eyes for a moment, though he wasn't at all sure he'd be able to open them again. He'd been awake for eight days straight and only Professor Snape's potions were keeping him from hallucinating. "You were saying?"
"Severus isn't going to like this."
"That's nice." Harry looked down at the battered, bloody man on the bed. Voldemort's displeasure with the Potions Master was marked out on his flesh in jagged lines of red and black. At least the sick, putrid stench of rotting flesh was gone and the threat of blood poisoning was past. Snape's long, slender fingers were splinted, his body unable to take the strain of Skele-gro to repair the damage done to his elegant hands.
"Harry --"
"Headmaster, what's done is done." Harry passed a trembling hand over his eyes and tried to concentrate on his next words. "Cornelius Fudge wants someone to blame for this debacle and he's chosen the Slytherin families and Snape in particular to be his scapegoats. By saving Snape, by marrying him, I've let Fudge and the Wizangamot know that I won't just allow them to do that."
"Do you really think that's necessary, child?"
Harry stared at the Headmaster. "How can you think it isn't? The Ministry has to make a show of doing something, of doing anything to prevent this from happening again. They'll destroy the Slytherin families and confiscate the Slytherin properties all in the name of Light, and for what? The money and prestige that will fall into the hands of the Ministry and funnel into unknown hands."
Harry turned and pointed a shaking finger at Blaise Zabini. "Does Zabini deserve to end up in Azkaban, detained for an indeterminate amount of time, when he has fought on the side of Light since the beginning?"
Harry's gaze went further. "How about Crabbe there, who turned away from his father and his patron to fight beside Hermione? How does he rate being sent to Azkaban? What does House affiliation really have to do with it anyway? It's not as though all of Voldemort's supporters were Slytherin."
Dumbledore turned his eyes away and Harry almost apologized for bringing up a sore point that during the final battle had become an open wound. Voldemort had not relied solely upon Slytherin cunning after his rebirth. Ravenclaw had been the hardest hit of the four Houses, its sharp intellectuals seduced with the promise of forbidden knowledge. Hufflepuff had also taken a severe beating, the hard workers that were the backbone of the Wizarding World, falling for the assurance of recognition. Not even Gryffindor remained unscathed, not with the loss of the Creevy boys and the Patil girl to the Dark Lord.
It was best not to discuss what had happened within the Weasley family. Those wounds would be deep.
And forever.
Harry sighed. "We have to protect them, Headmaster."
"Honestly, Potter, could you be more melodramatic?" Zabini's rough voice broke in and Harry managed a tired smile at the dark-haired Slytherin.
"Of course I could. Aren't you glad I'm not?"
"Oh, the humanity!" came a mocking voice from the doorway. Hermione Granger stood there in her tattered glory, eyes sweeping across the Infirmary only to rest upon him. "Harry! Fudge came barreling through the Great Hall..."
"Not to worry, Hermione. I managed not to hex the bastard."
Hermione Granger curled her lip, snarling. "I didn't."
"Miss Granger --"
"Oh! Sorry, Headmaster. I didn't see you there." There was a small gash on her cheek dripping slow, bloody tears. Crabbe, who had finally grown into his long awkward limbs, freed himself from Pomfrey's clutches in order to wrap an arm around his lover. Hermione leaned back against him, relaxing slightly. "Fudge started screaming at the Aurors with him about being lazy do-nothings, so I hexed him."
"Hermione..." Harry stared at her, unsure whether he liked the way her hard, chocolate eyes flickered with malicious glee.
"Helium hex. He'll be talking like Alvin and the Chipmunks for the next hour."
Despite his fatigue, Harry had to laugh at that. "Oh, Merlin."
"Alvin and the Chipmunks?" asked Zabini.
"Muggle thing," Harry and Hermione said in unison before bursting out laughing. Once started, though, Harry found that he couldn't stop. Hysteria took firm hold of his shoulders and shook him like an understuffed rag doll. He was laughing and tears of grief and rage poured down his face, landing salty and bitter on the torn rags that had been his battle robes. He was laughing and crying and screaming his throat bloody when Hermione cast silencio on him and Madam Pomfrey held a cup of a cloyingly sweet concoction to his lips. He drank it down like a good little soldier, hoping desperately that it could stop the tears and the pain and the uncertainty and the God-awful fear that was strangling him and numbing his mind and soul.
And for a small space of time, it did just that.
~0~
To say that Harry Potter was having a rough week was putting it pretty mildly. On the Monday two weeks before the NEWTs were set to begin, Professor Severus Snape had gone missing.
In and of itself, this was not wholly unusual. Professor Snape had gone missing before and, on a few occasions, had been missing for longer periods of time. No, it wasn't that the NEWTs-level Potions class abruptly had a substitute that had absolutely no idea what was going on that was strange. Strange was the fact that Harry Potter was perfectly well aware that Voldemort had finally discovered Snape's double dealing and that Snape himself had been forbidden -- or at least cautioned strongly -- against leaving Hogwarts grounds.
Snape had a strong attachment to his own hide, despite his close to Gryffindor-ish bravery when it came to sliding through the menacing shadows. Since he had no reason to obey any summons from Voldemort and despite his nocturnal wanderings, it was unlikely that the man had just gone for a jaunt in the Forbidden Forest. Harry strongly suspected that somehow Snape had been captured.
Under normal circumstances, this would have been indescribably difficult to confirm -- with Snape's exposure as a spy, they had lost their ear in Voldemort's inner circle. Fortunately for Snape, Voldemort's rabid compulsion for self-aggrandizement had caused the insane bastard to literally force images of Snape's torture and debasement into Harry's mind at the first opportunity. Unfortunately for Voldemort, Harry had become a more than proficient Legilimens in the wake of his Godfather's death, and Harry had used the connection that Voldemort forced open to rive secrets from the Dark Lord that not even his Death Eaters knew.
Then, against Dumbledore's orders and quite contrary to common sense, Harry had alerted the Defense League that had arisen out of the ashes of Dumbledore's Army, and they had gone to war. If anyone had told him that he'd do battle for the welfare of one Severus Snape with an army of volunteers, Harry would have laughed -- right before casting Petrificus and hauling the offender straight to St. Mungo's. Even now, in the wake of a conflict that had cost the lives of roughly a quarter of his colleagues (he'd never been able to see them as troops), it was difficult to believe he'd done so.
After all, the NEWTs were still three days away, and it was hard to quite comprehend that he'd killed Voldemort before ending his schooling.
Harry stared at his hands; at the short, slender fingers that guided a broom with such grace and flicked a wand with such authority that the darkest Dark Lord in history had been vanquished by his will alone. How strange it was to think that these hands had committed such acts as to kill and to maim with the sole intent of freeing a man who despised him. Curious how they flowed into powerful wrists and wiry forearms built up from years of Quidditch, so very clean and innocent looking when he knew that they were stained with the blood of dozens (aside from the aforesaid dreaded Dark Lord).
He'd threatened the Minister of Magic with these hands.
"Harry?"
He glanced up, unsurprised to find Hermione Granger standing at the foot of his bed. Something inside of him ached at the absence of his other best friend, but Ronald Weasley was dead.
Harry tried to find a smile. "Not studying?"
Hermione snorted. "In this mess? They've put off testing while the Aurors crawl all over the school. Fudge wants to be sure that there are no more surprises, apparently."
"Can't be hard to surprise an idiot like him." Harry shook his head, and regretted it. Calming potions had a regrettable tendency to give him incipient migraines. "How fares the school?"
"Tolerable, given that we've got most of the DL ambulatory. Dumbledore doesn't really want us patrolling the halls, but with the number of professors that were taken out of action in that inside attack --" Hermione grimaced, "-- well, he's not got a lot of choice right now. He's damn lucky we got back before Narcissa Malfoy scraped together enough bloody Death Eaters to attack. When the wards went down --"
Hermione stopped cold, unable to continue. Harry nodded his understanding. Unbeknownst to them all, Tom Riddle had been grooming his Dark Queen using a link he'd forged years before. In the wake of his death, Ginny Weasley had turned vicious, sacrificing her brother in an obscene blood rite in a doomed attempt to restore Voldemort's spirit -- or, in failing that, to bring down the school that her lover had so despised.
The battle for Hogwarts had been a long one. Longer, indeed, than the fight that had taken out the Dark Lord. Voldemort had expected them, an army of children, to fall to a handful of Death Eaters and so had not bothered to summon much more than a token force to protect himself. On the other hand, under siege from within and without, and unable to determine who could be trusted in the running battle for Hogwarts... it had been a nightmare beyond comprehension.
"Anyway... Fudge sent Dumbledore a Howler, Harry, and..."
"He's not pleased?" Harry's lips curled in a sardonic smile that faded under her uncomfortable stare.
"Well... not exactly. Or, rather, he's pleased -- he's planning on filing an annulment on Snape's behalf, Harry. And if Snape doesn't wake up soon, well -- it'll probably go through. Dumbledore's pulling what strings he can with the Department of Magical Marriages, but..." she flushed.
"But what? Hermione?" He didn't like the look on her face. "C'mon, Hermione, it can't be that bad, can it?"
"Harry, if you and Snape don't consummate your marriage within twenty-four hours, it'll be annulled and the Aurors will take not only him, but you, the Slytherins and every member of the DL."
He stared at her.
"Well, bugger all."
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Frankly, I'd be satisfied if you'd bugger Snape, if it's all the same to you."
On to Part II
Pairing: HP/SS
Rating: R, I really don't think it's obnoxious enough to justify NC-17
Genre: Drama
Warnings: Adult Language, Sexual Situations, Non-con, Character Death
Disclaimer: I wish I owned the characters. Harry would have relatives who cared for him and Snape would have some closure. Alas, Harry and Snape belong to J. K. Rowling, primarily, as well as Scholasitc and Warner Brothers.
Beta: My most beloved goddess LegacyLady who not only beta'd but kept a copy so that when I discovered mine was corrupted saved my ass. Also many thanks to Annastrianna, even though due to computer problems I lost her beta work. I suck. They rock. The end.
Dedication: To LegacyLady. Thank you so much for keeping an extra copy around. You totally rock.
Challenge: John Donne -- "No man is an island."
Primus:
Fiat Lux
"You can have my husband over my broken, bleeding corpse."
Harry Potter stood at the foot of the hospital bed, wand pointed directly between Cornelius Fudge's eyes. It was obvious to him that there wasn't a person in the room who didn't believe that the Boy-Who-Lived wouldn't splatter the Minister of Magic all over Hogwarts' Hospital Wing. The Aurors with Fudge hesitated, caught between their loyalty to the Minister and their fear of the rage that had the Man-Who-Just-Defeated-Voldemort's eyes literally glowing with barely suppressed power.
Fudge snorted, staring into those eyes as he called his bluff. "Mr. Potter, spare the dramatics. Severus Snape is a known Death Eater and comes from a family of known supporters of the Dark Lord. The law the Wizangamot passed is very clear -- he will go to Azkaban to await trial, like all of the others."
"By that law, you will have to arrest me for being a supporter of Voldemort, too. After all, I am a member of the Snape family." Harry's wand didn't move, though his lips twitched in a sardonic smile. After facing down Voldemort, an ineffectual wanker like Cornelius Fudge was hardly enough to rattle his nerves. "Are you going to arrest the Boy-Who-Lived?"
"Don't be ridiculous, Potter. You couldn't possibly be married to Snape. Nothing has been filed at the Ministry. I would have known."
Albus Dumbledore, for once looking every minute of his one hundred and fifty-plus years, finally managed to limp his way down the aisle of beds to sit at Snape's side. One of his twinkling blue eyes had already been replaced with a madly swirling orb similar to Alastor Moody's, but it would take a while before Pomfrey would have the time to regenerate his missing arm.
"Cornelius, is this all really necessary?"
"All known Death Eaters and their families are subject to this. Unless you can prove that Snape really is... married... to someone like Potter here, whom we all know was against Voldemort, I insist that he be taken away."
"Don't you fucking --" Harry hissed.
"Harry, please --" Dumbledore's voice cut him off. "It's simple enough."
Dumbledore gently shook Snape, rousing the injured man on the bed. "Severus? Severus... come on now. There we are. I need to ask you a question."
"Hmmnnnngh?" Pained black eyes opened, confusion painting clouds of uncertainty over their depths. "He'masr?"
"Yes, Severus. Harry says that the two of you are married. Is it true that he's your husband?"
Snape's lashes lowered, the lead weights pulling them down almost visible to the outside observer. "H'sbnd. Mmmn."
The eyes closed as Snape fell back into unconsciousness.
"Well then. That was clear enough, I think."
"Clear enough for what?" snarled Fudge, leaning forward slightly. Harry pressed his wand lightly against the man's forehead, baring his teeth in a silent snarl.
"For this..." Dumbledore waved his free hand and a thick ledger appeared before him, flipping open to a page somewhere near the middle. "Ah, yes. Here it is -- I am sorry, Cornelius, but if Mister Potter and Professor Snape weren't married before, they certainly are now."
"What is that?"
"The Hogwarts Marriage Register." Despite his injuries and the carnage that surrounded them from the final battle, Albus Dumbledore sparkled with good humor. "I'm sure you're honored to be listed as one of the witnesses to the marriage of Severus Aurelius Snape and Harry James Potter on this day."
"Let me see that."
The book floated past him to hover beside Fudge. Even upside-down, Harry could see it written with florid whirls in garish red-gold ink. Fudge sneered and the heavy tome snapped closed.
"This can't be legal."
"Oh, it is quite legal, Cornelius. This is Scotland, you know."
Fudge glared at him and Harry smirked. That was what he'd been counting on, after all. "We acknowledged the relationship, thus, it's legal."
"Ludicrous! Not even Muggles would do something so ridiculous!"
"They don't. They changed the laws years ago; but here in Wizarding Scotland, they have held to its Irregular Marriages most tenaciously." Dumbledore smiled. "My parents were wed this way, you know. My mother would have ended up married to Kieran Bulstrode otherwise."
Fudge turned red. Then purple.
Harry's smile didn't quite reach his deadly eyes. Neither did he lower his wand. "Get. Out."
"Gentlemen!" Fudge turned to address the Aurors. "I want every Slytherin here arrested and taken away."
The Aurors stared at him. Then they stared beyond him, to the seething Boy-Who-Lived.
"Just try it and see how far you get." Harry's scowl was vicious. "We took down Voldemort without your help. Don't think we can't take you."
"Is that a threat, Mister Potter?" Fudge's eyes met his and the man looked away with a shudder. Harry's smile was rimmed with ice even as he glared hotly down the length of his wand.
"I don't make threats, Minister, they're a waste of my time. But I promise you that if you come after us again, I will bury you and hold an annual ball atop your grave."
"Don't think you're going to get away with this, Potter. I'll not have the next Dark Lord arising out of Hogwarts."
"Dark Lord?" Power crackled along Harry's arms, throwing off shards of brilliant light. The Aurors with Fudge backed away. Fudge blanched, but Harry had to give him credit for holding his ground. "You gravely misunderstand me, Cornelius Fudge. For now, however, I suggest you leave, without Severus and without the Slytherins."
Fudge glared at him for a moment longer before backing down. He snapped his fingers at the Aurors and the small group swept out of the room, shoving the injured and able-bodied alike out of their way.
"Don't you think that was a bit much, Harry?" Dumbledore's voice was gentle.
Harry finally, finally lowered his wand and the exhausted trembling that he'd only barely kept at bay flooded through him. "Headmaster?"
"You do realize that once Severus realizes that he's gotten married with only the most dubious of consent, that there will be Hell to pay."
Harry barely heard him; he was too busy trying not to collapse onto a floor that already housed the people there had not been enough beds for. He waved his wand vaguely at a dropped piece of bandaging, transfiguring it into a small stool so he could finally, finally, finally just sit down.
"Harry? Are you listening?"
"Not really." Harry leaned back, closing his eyes for a moment, though he wasn't at all sure he'd be able to open them again. He'd been awake for eight days straight and only Professor Snape's potions were keeping him from hallucinating. "You were saying?"
"Severus isn't going to like this."
"That's nice." Harry looked down at the battered, bloody man on the bed. Voldemort's displeasure with the Potions Master was marked out on his flesh in jagged lines of red and black. At least the sick, putrid stench of rotting flesh was gone and the threat of blood poisoning was past. Snape's long, slender fingers were splinted, his body unable to take the strain of Skele-gro to repair the damage done to his elegant hands.
"Harry --"
"Headmaster, what's done is done." Harry passed a trembling hand over his eyes and tried to concentrate on his next words. "Cornelius Fudge wants someone to blame for this debacle and he's chosen the Slytherin families and Snape in particular to be his scapegoats. By saving Snape, by marrying him, I've let Fudge and the Wizangamot know that I won't just allow them to do that."
"Do you really think that's necessary, child?"
Harry stared at the Headmaster. "How can you think it isn't? The Ministry has to make a show of doing something, of doing anything to prevent this from happening again. They'll destroy the Slytherin families and confiscate the Slytherin properties all in the name of Light, and for what? The money and prestige that will fall into the hands of the Ministry and funnel into unknown hands."
Harry turned and pointed a shaking finger at Blaise Zabini. "Does Zabini deserve to end up in Azkaban, detained for an indeterminate amount of time, when he has fought on the side of Light since the beginning?"
Harry's gaze went further. "How about Crabbe there, who turned away from his father and his patron to fight beside Hermione? How does he rate being sent to Azkaban? What does House affiliation really have to do with it anyway? It's not as though all of Voldemort's supporters were Slytherin."
Dumbledore turned his eyes away and Harry almost apologized for bringing up a sore point that during the final battle had become an open wound. Voldemort had not relied solely upon Slytherin cunning after his rebirth. Ravenclaw had been the hardest hit of the four Houses, its sharp intellectuals seduced with the promise of forbidden knowledge. Hufflepuff had also taken a severe beating, the hard workers that were the backbone of the Wizarding World, falling for the assurance of recognition. Not even Gryffindor remained unscathed, not with the loss of the Creevy boys and the Patil girl to the Dark Lord.
It was best not to discuss what had happened within the Weasley family. Those wounds would be deep.
And forever.
Harry sighed. "We have to protect them, Headmaster."
"Honestly, Potter, could you be more melodramatic?" Zabini's rough voice broke in and Harry managed a tired smile at the dark-haired Slytherin.
"Of course I could. Aren't you glad I'm not?"
"Oh, the humanity!" came a mocking voice from the doorway. Hermione Granger stood there in her tattered glory, eyes sweeping across the Infirmary only to rest upon him. "Harry! Fudge came barreling through the Great Hall..."
"Not to worry, Hermione. I managed not to hex the bastard."
Hermione Granger curled her lip, snarling. "I didn't."
"Miss Granger --"
"Oh! Sorry, Headmaster. I didn't see you there." There was a small gash on her cheek dripping slow, bloody tears. Crabbe, who had finally grown into his long awkward limbs, freed himself from Pomfrey's clutches in order to wrap an arm around his lover. Hermione leaned back against him, relaxing slightly. "Fudge started screaming at the Aurors with him about being lazy do-nothings, so I hexed him."
"Hermione..." Harry stared at her, unsure whether he liked the way her hard, chocolate eyes flickered with malicious glee.
"Helium hex. He'll be talking like Alvin and the Chipmunks for the next hour."
Despite his fatigue, Harry had to laugh at that. "Oh, Merlin."
"Alvin and the Chipmunks?" asked Zabini.
"Muggle thing," Harry and Hermione said in unison before bursting out laughing. Once started, though, Harry found that he couldn't stop. Hysteria took firm hold of his shoulders and shook him like an understuffed rag doll. He was laughing and tears of grief and rage poured down his face, landing salty and bitter on the torn rags that had been his battle robes. He was laughing and crying and screaming his throat bloody when Hermione cast silencio on him and Madam Pomfrey held a cup of a cloyingly sweet concoction to his lips. He drank it down like a good little soldier, hoping desperately that it could stop the tears and the pain and the uncertainty and the God-awful fear that was strangling him and numbing his mind and soul.
And for a small space of time, it did just that.
To say that Harry Potter was having a rough week was putting it pretty mildly. On the Monday two weeks before the NEWTs were set to begin, Professor Severus Snape had gone missing.
In and of itself, this was not wholly unusual. Professor Snape had gone missing before and, on a few occasions, had been missing for longer periods of time. No, it wasn't that the NEWTs-level Potions class abruptly had a substitute that had absolutely no idea what was going on that was strange. Strange was the fact that Harry Potter was perfectly well aware that Voldemort had finally discovered Snape's double dealing and that Snape himself had been forbidden -- or at least cautioned strongly -- against leaving Hogwarts grounds.
Snape had a strong attachment to his own hide, despite his close to Gryffindor-ish bravery when it came to sliding through the menacing shadows. Since he had no reason to obey any summons from Voldemort and despite his nocturnal wanderings, it was unlikely that the man had just gone for a jaunt in the Forbidden Forest. Harry strongly suspected that somehow Snape had been captured.
Under normal circumstances, this would have been indescribably difficult to confirm -- with Snape's exposure as a spy, they had lost their ear in Voldemort's inner circle. Fortunately for Snape, Voldemort's rabid compulsion for self-aggrandizement had caused the insane bastard to literally force images of Snape's torture and debasement into Harry's mind at the first opportunity. Unfortunately for Voldemort, Harry had become a more than proficient Legilimens in the wake of his Godfather's death, and Harry had used the connection that Voldemort forced open to rive secrets from the Dark Lord that not even his Death Eaters knew.
Then, against Dumbledore's orders and quite contrary to common sense, Harry had alerted the Defense League that had arisen out of the ashes of Dumbledore's Army, and they had gone to war. If anyone had told him that he'd do battle for the welfare of one Severus Snape with an army of volunteers, Harry would have laughed -- right before casting Petrificus and hauling the offender straight to St. Mungo's. Even now, in the wake of a conflict that had cost the lives of roughly a quarter of his colleagues (he'd never been able to see them as troops), it was difficult to believe he'd done so.
After all, the NEWTs were still three days away, and it was hard to quite comprehend that he'd killed Voldemort before ending his schooling.
Harry stared at his hands; at the short, slender fingers that guided a broom with such grace and flicked a wand with such authority that the darkest Dark Lord in history had been vanquished by his will alone. How strange it was to think that these hands had committed such acts as to kill and to maim with the sole intent of freeing a man who despised him. Curious how they flowed into powerful wrists and wiry forearms built up from years of Quidditch, so very clean and innocent looking when he knew that they were stained with the blood of dozens (aside from the aforesaid dreaded Dark Lord).
He'd threatened the Minister of Magic with these hands.
"Harry?"
He glanced up, unsurprised to find Hermione Granger standing at the foot of his bed. Something inside of him ached at the absence of his other best friend, but Ronald Weasley was dead.
Harry tried to find a smile. "Not studying?"
Hermione snorted. "In this mess? They've put off testing while the Aurors crawl all over the school. Fudge wants to be sure that there are no more surprises, apparently."
"Can't be hard to surprise an idiot like him." Harry shook his head, and regretted it. Calming potions had a regrettable tendency to give him incipient migraines. "How fares the school?"
"Tolerable, given that we've got most of the DL ambulatory. Dumbledore doesn't really want us patrolling the halls, but with the number of professors that were taken out of action in that inside attack --" Hermione grimaced, "-- well, he's not got a lot of choice right now. He's damn lucky we got back before Narcissa Malfoy scraped together enough bloody Death Eaters to attack. When the wards went down --"
Hermione stopped cold, unable to continue. Harry nodded his understanding. Unbeknownst to them all, Tom Riddle had been grooming his Dark Queen using a link he'd forged years before. In the wake of his death, Ginny Weasley had turned vicious, sacrificing her brother in an obscene blood rite in a doomed attempt to restore Voldemort's spirit -- or, in failing that, to bring down the school that her lover had so despised.
The battle for Hogwarts had been a long one. Longer, indeed, than the fight that had taken out the Dark Lord. Voldemort had expected them, an army of children, to fall to a handful of Death Eaters and so had not bothered to summon much more than a token force to protect himself. On the other hand, under siege from within and without, and unable to determine who could be trusted in the running battle for Hogwarts... it had been a nightmare beyond comprehension.
"Anyway... Fudge sent Dumbledore a Howler, Harry, and..."
"He's not pleased?" Harry's lips curled in a sardonic smile that faded under her uncomfortable stare.
"Well... not exactly. Or, rather, he's pleased -- he's planning on filing an annulment on Snape's behalf, Harry. And if Snape doesn't wake up soon, well -- it'll probably go through. Dumbledore's pulling what strings he can with the Department of Magical Marriages, but..." she flushed.
"But what? Hermione?" He didn't like the look on her face. "C'mon, Hermione, it can't be that bad, can it?"
"Harry, if you and Snape don't consummate your marriage within twenty-four hours, it'll be annulled and the Aurors will take not only him, but you, the Slytherins and every member of the DL."
He stared at her.
"Well, bugger all."
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Frankly, I'd be satisfied if you'd bugger Snape, if it's all the same to you."
