Quiesco

Harry could hear Snape breathing heavily as he slammed the office door, muttering a locking charm.

"We should be safe... for the moment..." he gasped out, collapsing exhaustedly in his chair.

Harry clutched his wand tightly in his hand and took several deep breaths, trying to calm himself, without much success. The Death Eaters had burst in on them unexpectedly... they had snuck in, they had the run of the school, and they had come barrelling down on him... he was sure he was going to die, but suddenly Severus Snape was there, and somehow, against all odds, they had been able to retreat to the haven of the dungeons, and the Potions Master's office.

"These lower halls are a deathtrap, with all my defenses activated," Snape continued in a slightly more level tone, having recovered somewhat. He looked toward the door with an unreadable expression. "It will take them some time to break through."

Harry did not speak for several moments.

"But they will eventually."

He had gotten up, now; Snape was rummaging through a cabinet in the back of his office, and didn't bother to look back at the boy, but his tone sounded much more normal as he snapped, "Of course they will. Don't be an idiot." For some reason, this was reassuring.

Harry sat down on one of the stools in front of Snape's desk. The room was silent, save for their heavy breathing, and the clink of glass and rustle of parchment as Snape rifled through the cabinet. Harry could hear nothing of what might be happening beyond the door. The silence stretched out oppressively, and eventually, he found he could stand it no longer.

"What do you think we should do, Professor?"

It was a second before Snape answered; he turned and walked toward Harry holding a vial of potion, and did not speak until he had handed it to the boy. "We aren't doing anything," the Potions Master informed him archly. "I will be drawing their attention, and you will be running away. Drink it," he snarled suddenly, as Harry stared at him with a dumbfounded expression, "you'll need all your stamina, and there won't be time for you to sit here and rest properly."

Harry downed the potion obediently, and hardly noticed the horrid taste as he continued to stare at Snape, wide-eyed. Snape held his gaze for a moment, that odd, closed expression still on his face, then returned to the cabinet.

After a moment, Harry frowned. "I... I can't just leave you to die."

"You bloody well can," said Snape immediately, voice quiet but intense, still turned away from him.

"No," Harry replied, rising from his seat with a dawning certainty. "No, I can't. You've saved my life so many times already--"

"Which is precisely why you will not be throwing it away today!" Snape growled. He shoved something roughly aside in the cabinet. "I've spent too many years protecting your ungrateful hide to just let you run off and get yourself killed now."

Harry couldn't think of a response to that. He sank down slowly back onto the stool, and the room was quiet again. After a second, he could hear something faintly, far off in the distance, that sounded like shouting. Snape continued to search through the cabinet almost mechanically.

"Professor Snape... you just... You can't die." Despite his best efforts, Harry's voice shook slightly. "I mean, I... I know you can't stand me, and I'm not too fond of you either... but I can't just leave you here after everything..." He trailed off, uncertain of what he was trying to say in the first place.

Snape stilled, continuing to look toward the cabinet. Harry could not see his expression.

"I've had more time on this Earth than I deserved already, Potter," he murmured after a second. "I'm no great loss to the world."

"But... you've done so much for us..." Harry whispered. "It's not fair..."

Snape let out a harsh sound, that might have been a laugh.

"I see, despite everything, you are still a child."

The shouts outside were gradually growing louder. Snape picked up something from the cabinet and turned around again, with an air of certainty, of finality, a calm expression surfacing on his face as he walked slowly toward Harry. He held out an envelope. With trembling hands, Harry reached out to take it.

"No time to be sentimental," Snape said quietly. "Take it, keep it, save it 'til later." Harry tucked it quickly inside his robes. The Potions Master turned toward the door of his office, and Harry was astonished to see a faint smile playing about his features.

"I do hope Lucius Malfoy is waiting out there," Snape breathed, his smile acquiring a malicious edge. He glanced toward Harry with an amused glint in his eye. "I think you can agree that will make it all worthwhile."

Harry couldn't speak through the lump in his throat, but he nodded, somehow managing to smile in return.

The shouting was growing closer and closer now, and it seemed the Death Eaters would bear down on them any second. Snape's face had turned sober again, and he gave Harry a long, penetrating glance.

"You look so much like James, you know," he whispered abruptly, looking as though he might say something more; but he only shook his head as though to clear it, and walked over to the door, brandishing his wand. Harry watched him, an ever-present question rearing up once more in his mind.

"I do believe they're coming." Snape grinned toward the door for just a second, a feral, catlike, confident grin; and then he was all business. "Be ready to dodge to the left, the second I open this door. No matter what happens, keep running. Dumbledore and your friends should be waiting for you somewhere down there."

Harry felt suddenly desperate as he walked over to Snape. He seized the Potions Master by his shoulder, and Snape allowed himself to be pulled back around.

"Please, Professor, just--just tell me one thing," he managed to stammer out. "You--I know why you hate me... because of my father...

"But why have you always been protecting me...?"

Snape glanced toward the spot where Harry had tucked away his envelope. He turned away again, and Harry could not tell what sort of emotion colored the man's voice as he repeated Harry's own words:

"Because of your father."

Harry stared at him a moment; and then there were footsteps outside, and he found himself wordlessly raising his own wand.

"Thank God I will never have to teach you in a class again," Snape said into the silence, reaching for the door with a smile, that calm, content expression on his countenance once more.

He turned the knob, and then it began.