Trying Snape

Trying Snape: Chapter One - Reminisces

Harry Potter wished that he could go back to the days where he was in Hogwarts. While it had all seemed mind-numbingly scary at the time, looking back, it had all been wonderful - if highly dangerous - fun. The people he had known, the friendships he had made, all of it, meant so much more to him than the ten years since he'd graduated. His teenage years had meant something; he had been the Boy-Who-Lived and had fought against Voldemort.

In his final year at Hogwarts, the last battle had been fought, just outside of Hogsmeade. Harry had been certain that he was going to die, and the six months in St. Mungo's after the event testified to that. Without Dumbledore's help, the Order of the Phoenix lost many of its most valued members. Of the Weasley family, only Ron and Ginny remained. Lupin, Tonks, and Moody had all perished.

They'd even thought they'd won. Harry had destroyed all the Horcruxes, so the only remaining vestige of Voldemort's soul lay within his own body. Once that body was destroyed, Voldemort would finally die. Or so they'd thought. Harry had known that while fighting Voldemort with his own wand did provide some protection, it was also less likely to be able to kill Voldemort. So he had taken Lupin's wand and performed the Avada Kedavra curse. Voldemort had fallen. They had burned his body. The world had rejoiced. Harry was the wizarding world's hero again.

Of course, he hadn't been conscious for any of the celebrations. It wasn't until six months after the fact that he woke up in a hospital bed. It took him a further year and a half to regain even the most rudimentary of functions - he had had to learn to walk and speak again. His friends had been instrumental in his recovery; Ron, Hermione, and Ginny had visited him every day. Then had come the arduous task of re-learning all the magic he had lost. Even now, he always had the sense that some part of him had been forever lost the day he'd killed Voldemort.

Only, there were unsettling signs that perhaps Voldemort wasn't quite as dead as they'd all thought him to be. There was no explanation given for how he could have survived, but there had been several attacks by Death Eaters over the previous six months. No one could know whether they were performed without Voldemort's assistance or not, but it seemed much like it had when Voldemort has returned for a second time. Why not a third?

Harry wasn't sure what he'd do if Voldemort truly wasn't dead. He had recently become an Auror, and knew that he would end up having to fight again were this the truth. But he was sick of fighting. He was sick of being famous, of putting his life on the line, of being someone special. He just wanted to be Harry. The fame had robbed him of a normal life, of normal relationships. Even now, at nearly 28 years old, he had yet to have a relationship that lasted more than six months. It didn't help that the media seized upon every relationship and usually that was what drove the girlfriend (or boyfriend - Harry had discovered he wasn't that picky when it came to gender) away.

Meanwhile, all of his friends had gone on to have reasonably normal lives. Ron and Hermione had married a few years ago, and were expecting the birth of their second child soon. Ginny was prominent in the Ministry and she was only climbing higher every year. She was unmarried, but at least she was successful. Harry was just a washed-out and worthless hero, as far as he was concerned.

His friends came by often to cheer him up, but all they succeeded in doing was depressing him further. He knew that he put them in a bad mood with his bad moods, and was considering using Muggle remedies - like antidepressants (or something stronger) - to fix his problems. Magic didn't seem to have done him much good.

What was worse was that he didn't even know how he'd change things if he had the chance. Everything seemed to have just ended up like this. Harry hadn't asked for Voldemort to attack his family when he was a baby, Harry couldn't have refused to fight Voldemort, or kill Voldemort, and he would have no choice about fighting Voldemort were he to come back. He had spent his life being a pawn, and he didn't know how to live as his own man.

He was broken out of his dreary thoughts by a man suddenly apparating right in front of him, looking rather distressed. Harry sat up in his chair, frowned, looked the man over, and finally stood up. "Felix, what's wrong?" Felix Jenkins was the Head of the Auror Department, and Harry had never seen him look like this.

"Harry, you must come with me at once," he said, gasping for breath. It seemed as though he had been running right before he'd apparated.

"What's wrong?" Harry demanded more forcefully. He had been quite happy sitting here this Saturday afternoon with his melancholy thoughts.

"Severus Snape has just been caught."

Harry gaped. They had never known what had happened to Snape after he had disappeared from Hogwarts after killing Dumbledore. They assumed he had risen to power within the Death Eaters and had been one of the hundreds that had been slaughtered after Voldemort's death. "Caught alive?"

"Yes. He's being held in Azkaban right now. Half-insane, he seems. Though what can you expect from a man crazy enough to do all the things he's done?"

Harry nodded. "Yes. So what's going to be done with him?"

"He'll be tried, and I don't see how anyone could find him guilty, and then he will probably be killed. The policy is as it ever was, Death Eaters must die. And Severus is a Death Eater to the core."

Harry nodded again. "So why do you seem so rushed and out-of-breath." Something just wasn't right here.

"Severus has refused to talk to anyone..."

"Anyone but me?" Harry raised an eyebrow. He couldn't see why the former Potions Master would want to talk to him.

Felix shook his head. "No, he won't talk to anyone, not even you. Not even the Minister of Magic. They've been," he lowered his voice a little, "torturing him."

"What?" Torture was not a practice that the Ministry of Magic condoned, Harry knew that perfectly well. This Minister and previous ones had said that to do so would be to sink to Voldemort's level.

"And they won't stop until they get a full confession."

"So why come to me? You're Head of the Department. If you can't stop them, I don't think anyone can."

"You're Harry Potter."

Harry grimaced. It always came back to that, didn't it? "And what do you want me to do, Felix?"

"Get the confession."