Blood Magic

69 -- Levels

Slowly, Harry became aware that a soft, full darkness had replaced the empty light. He was sore in a number of places -- most strongly, his wrist -- but his head didn't feel bad any more. He tried to remember where he had been. "Mum?"

There was a soft susurrance of shifting fabric to his left. "Harry, your mother died almost fifteen years ago."

Dad! Harry thought, relieved. He started to say that, then stopped himself. He was certain there was a good reason not to.

It occurred to him that this might be easier if he opened his eyes. He tried. It didn't seem to work.

"M'eyes...."

"Madame Pomfrey has spelled them shut, so that they may recover from the contradictory stimulation. She does not expect any permanent damage."

Harry felt around frantically. His right hand wouldn't move, but his left encountered flesh. He yanked his hand back, then slowly returned to the spot. He touched the skin tentatively, and decided the ridges were fingers. His guess was confirmed when the hand shifted and wrapped around his own.

"That you?" Harry asked tremulously.

"Yes. This is me." The hand squeezed his.

"You're my dad, right?"

"Oh, hell!" muttered the voice. Harry flinched. "Yes, yes," the voice went on. The speaker seemed to be attempting to sound soothing, but was clearly agitated. "Yes, Harry. I'm your dad. Do you know where you are?"

"Of course not. I can't see."

"Do you know where you were?"

It seemed as if the answer to this should also be "of course," but somehow it wasn't. Harry couldn't quite remember where he had been. There had been yellow curtains.

"Mum was there, but she thought I was you," he said. He heard a sharp intake of breath. "No, that's wrong. She was talking to you, but she didn't see me. Because she's dead? Why would that keep her from seeing me?"

"You saw a memory that your mother left," the voice said carefully. "You were not in her time; that is why she could not see you."

Severus had a wonderful voice, Harry thought. It could go very deep and was richly expressive -- He seized the thought. "You're Severus."

The hand clenched about his. There was a long silence. Harry was afraid he had made a mistake, while certain he had not. "Yes," the voice said curtly.

The flat tone was not reassuring. Harry gripped the hand tightly. "You'll take care of me?"

Again, a catch of breath. A second hand stroked the hair back from his forehead, leaving traces of a harsh, but comforting, scent.

"Dear child. Yes, I'll take care of you."

"You smell nice."

"What?" The voice was incredulous. Harry pulled their linked hands to his face and sniffed at them. His nose wrinkled involuntarily. "Well, not nice," he admitted, even as a flood of happiness washed over him. He remembered lying in the dark, holding very still. "But ... right."

There was a pause, and then several quick sniffs. "I seem to smell mostly of dragon's blood."

"Mm." Harry tried to explain. "There's almost a memory there. A happy one, I think, though it's scary, too." He stopped, then dared the inevitable question. "Will I remember? I think I ought to remember."

The hand squeezed his again. "Pomfrey -- the medi-witch who is watching you -- says it is likely."

"Soon?"

"Possibly the next time you wake, or the one after that." A pause. "If not, we will need to get you more specialized help." Another squeeze. "But you are remembering -- I think you will be fine."

The second time Harry woke, his eyes opened. The light was pale -- perhaps it was early morning -- and Hermione was reading in the chair beside his bed. He tried to say her name, but all that came out was a dry croak.

"Harry!" The book was abandoned at the side of the chair, and Hermione moved to the bed and embraced him. Worried brown eyes studied him as she pulled back. "How are you? Do you know who you are? Do you know who I am? Do --"

"Water."

"Oh -- of course!" She took a glass from the table and helped him to sit. Harry, from long experience waking up in the Hospital Wing, drank in little sips, allowing each to coat his mouth before he swallowed. He started to feel better.

"I'm Harry. You're Hermione, and you're my girlfriend, though I hid that from Fudge, because he's an arsehole -- sorry -- and...." Harry trailed off, remembering that he had woken before. "Oh, fuck."

"Harry," Hermione reprimanded.

"I had another visitor. I couldn't remember much, then." Harry remembered his own voice, you're my dad, right? and Severus swearing. He heated.

Hermione giggled. "A visitor in the middle of the night, perhaps? People have been very worried about you."

"What happened?"

"No one will tell me." She looked annoyed. "Honestly, Harry -- you were at a meeting with Dumbledore! How on earth can you go to a meeting in the headmaster's office and end up in the Hospital Wing?"

"Er ... innate talent?"

She laughed. "I suppose." She pointed to the far side of the bed. "The worst damage is to your hand -- well, it's the worst now that your mind seems to be working."

Harry looked. His right hand was bound to the bedrail. What he could see of it seemed to be made of clear glass.

"Shit!"

"Harry! Will you mind your language!"

"It's ... it's...."

"Madame Pomfrey says it will change back. As long as you don't shatter it in the meantime, it should be fine. You stuck it in some sort of potion, I gather."

"Oh." Harry remembered his hand getting sucked into the clear liquid in the pensieve. "Right."

"Really, Harry! You should know better than that."

Harry blinked at the ceiling. The little baby -- him! -- was chewing on the ear of the stuffed dog. James tossed him into the air.... "Yeah."

They managed a few more sentences before Harry fell back to sleep.

The third time Harry woke, Hermione was still there.

"Hermione?"

"Hi." Hermione looked up. She held up the book. It was the one about the Iranian refugee witch. "Doesn't it bother you the way she's smarter than the rest of her family put together?"

Harry blinked. "She's the heroine."

"I think it's that she's a witch. The author portrays all the Muggles as idiots."

Harry hadn't felt that way about the book at all. "I think it's just that she's the main character, that's all."

"It has a progressive message, but it's really just shoring up prejudices!" Hermione glared at him. "Maybe you should let someone else choose your books, Harry."

Harry felt a surge of annoyance. "And if I only read things you approve of, what would I learn? The prejudices are the point, Hermione! I need to learn what plays into them, what derails them. You should do this too!"

"So I can be a nice little assimilationist drone, too?"

"You don't need to go along with it." Harry realized he was trembling. "This is knowledge, Hermione. Don't you want that?"

He saw her bite back an angry reply. "This isn't the time," she said. "You're convalescing."

"Oh, don't patronize me!" He glared at her. "You don't like anything you can't control. You're worse than Malfoy."

"You--!" Hermione was turning very red. Before Harry could decide whether to apologize or press on, they were interrupted.

"Harry! Hey, I heard you were awake. Don't be angry at me -- I was at practice."

It was Ron. He hurried up to the bedside and grinned at Harry. He took in Hermione's tension with a glance, and plowed on as if he hadn't noticed. "When are you getting out? Lupin told us the part we'd been missing -- a spell that makes the fumes follow the ground. Covers it like a sheet. Did Hermione tell you?" He leaned forward to whisper. "He's very keen on us finishing key portions of the grounds."

"Um... That's great." Harry looked past Ron at Hermione, who seemed to be thinking hard. "I don't know when I'm getting out. I haven't spoken to Madame Pomfrey, yet."

Hermione wrinkled her nose. "Yes, you have! You talked for a few minutes, this morning."

"We did?"

"Yes." She bit her lip. "You don't remember?"

He shook his head. A moment later, Hermione was calling for Madame Pomfrey, all anger forgotten in concern. The mediwitch listened, then assured Harry that the memory lapses were completely normal.

"You certainly could have lost mental function," she scolded, "but from the way you are talking, it's clear that you did not. A few blank spots are to be expected the first day. I expect you'll be fine for Monday lessons."

"Do I need to stay here until then?"

She gestured to the hand. "We'll see how that hand looks after lunch, Mr. Potter."

The hand, to Harry's relief, looked fine after lunch, except for the fingernails, which still glittered in light as if they had been carved from diamonds. His ring, oddly, looked completely normal. Pomfrey assured him the effect would wear off in a day or two. She gave him orders to inform her if he had any further memory lapses, then left him alone to get dressed.

Harry was tapping the metal bedframe with the back of one crystal nail, producing light, ringing pings of sound and odd vibrations through his finger, when Ron and Hermione showed up, a few minutes later.

"I can go." He stuck his hand into his pocket as he stood. "Let's start."

Ron and Hermione and Harry went up to Gryffindor to get the incomplete map from Harry's locked trunk, and mapping supplies, including fresh potion, from Hermione's room. Then they went down to the one-eyed witch and mapped the tunnel to Honeydukes, where the proximity to sweets overcame morals to the extent that they snitched three large chocolate bars and some Fizzing Whizbees and left a galleon of Harry's in generous payment. Even Hermione gave in when the rich scent of chocolate was heavy in the tunnel.

"I knew you'd want one," Harry said, handing her the third bar.

"You two are a terrible influence on me, you know," Hermione complained, breaking a modest piece off the huge bar. "I'm not supposed to eat sweets between meals." Her eyes closed in pleasure when she put the chocolate in her mouth.

When they got back, they began to explore the tunnels that Fred and George had warned Harry not to use when they had first given him the Marauder's Map. First they tried the secret tunnel behind the mirror on the fourth floor. It was an easier entrance than the one behind the one-eyed witch -- flat and dry -- and they walked down the passageway for about ten minutes before finding the cave-in reported by Fred and George. It was still completely blocking the tunnel. Harry was pretty sure that none of Voldemort's forces would enter the school that way.

Next, they began hunting for the tunnels that Filch was reputed to know about and monitor. These they mapped more cautiously, with one person standing guard at the entrance while the others worked inside. The first one of these went all the way to the Hogsmeade and took over an hour for Ron and Hermione to map, but the second was caved in below the castle and Harry and Hermione finished the accessible part in five minutes.

The third had its entrance in the dungeons. Harry, who knew more convenient side corridors and empty rooms in that territory than the others, led the way and got them to the entrance unseen. While known, it did not seem to be unused -- a wide section a minute from the entrance was littered with wrappers from sweets, empty vials, and, to Harry's amusement, a few cigar ends.

"Ugh!" Ron said, making a face. "Slytherins are such pigs!"

"Hey now," Harry chided. "It could be Hufflepuffs."

Ron stared at him incredulously for a minute. Eventually, he seemed to come to the conclusion that Harry was joking. "Yeah," he said, rolling his eyes. "Right."

The tunnel ended up near the edge of the Forbidden Forest, out of sight of Hagrid's hut and all but the tallest towers of the castle. The only useful aspect of the site seemed to be its remoteness. Harry hunted around a bit and found a seldom-used track into the forest itself. The afternoon sky was overcast and growing dark. Even Harry was not tempted to follow the trail in.

When they got back, Hermione was pale. "I was nearly caught four times!" she hissed. "Do you realize how long you were gone?"

"Sorry." Harry nudged up against her. "We found the Slytherin party spot."

With an exasperated sigh, she turned her back on him. Impulsively, he caught at her from behind, setting his hands on her hips. She grabbed for his hand to push it away, but he grasped hers back, and she froze.

"Thought you said it was Hufflepuffs."

"Nah." Harry brought Hermione's hand back in front of her to pull her back against him as he replied to Ron. She giggled and twisted away. "We know that all the trouble in this school is caused by Slytherins and Gryffindors."

"What an timely observation, Potter," hissed a cool voice. Ron went rigid. Harry turned slowly. Professor Snape -- and he was very much Professor Snape, at the moment -- was surveying them with a hunter's triumphant glee. Harry was very conscious of Hermione's hand in his own. He held it firmly, although that brought his arm almost entirely around her waist.

"Excuse me, sir?"

"Tell me, Potter, what trouble are you Gryffindors causing now?"

"Why, none sir. We were just walking."

Snape's eyebrows went up. "In the dungeons?" His voice went dangerously low as he stepped closer. Hermione edged closer to Harry as he sniffed the air close to them. Harry was reminded of last night's exchange about dragon's blood and had to bite back a smile.

"And such an unusual odor about you. If I didn't know were incapable of it, I'd say you had been brewing potions."

Harry couldn't restrain a snort of laughter at that.

"Is that amusing, Potter?'

Harry grinned. "Incapable, hell! Her and me?"

Severus, who now had his back to the main corridor, smiled. "Insolent brat." The insult came out sounding rather affectionate, and he winced. Rather more sharply, he said, "Hand over that flask, Miss Granger."

"It's not your concern." Hermione let go of Harry's hand to shift her grip on the flask.

"That is not for you to judge." The Potions master's lips tightened. After a second, he nodded slightly. "The three of you will come with me. Now. And if that flask is dropped on the way, you will be punished according to my worst expectations of what it might have contained."

He whirled (six inches clearance at most, Harry thought hopefully) and strode off down the corridor. They had to hurry to catch up.

In Severus's office, he closed the door, but did not ward it. He settled behind his desk, black eyes flicking coldly over each of them in turn.

"The flask," he said. "And empty your pockets."

Hermione and Ron looked nervously at Harry, who shrugged slightly and started emptying his pockets. He put a rag ball had made as a ferret toy, matches, and two galleons readily on the table. He winced slightly as he took out half a chocolate bar and the Fizzing Whizbees. He covered it by putting the map down with a bit of a flourish. His wand he kept in his hand.

"Sweets, Potter?" Severus's mouth twitched.

"I'm a growing boy, you know."

Severus choked, covered his smile with one hand while he recovered, and then cast silencing spells at the door and the grate. His stance relaxed slightly, and he gestured to the others. "You too. Everything. And do hand over that flask, Granger."

Snape went for the flask before anything else was added to the table. He checked its odor, then poured some out into a tapered beaker to check color and viscosity.

"It's perfectly harmless," Hermione said sharply.

"Hm." Severus sat back and studied the beaker. He lifted it critically, like an untasted glass of wine. He put it down again and looked over it at each of them in turn, stopping at Harry. "So why, exactly, do you need an activator potion?" He seized the pouch of mugwort from Hermione's pile and pulled out a pinch of broken dried leaves. "The catalyst?"

Harry nodded. He wished Severus would just trust him. Severus crushed the pinch of mugwort, sniffed it appraising, then sat back. "Tell me what you were doing."

Harry, to Ron's visibly growing dismay, did. He revealed everything, including a reminder that both Severus and Remus had recommended monitoring these approaches to the castle. "And when you and Professor Lupin are of the same opinion, sir, it's generally a good idea to consider it."

He hoped that would close the matter, but his father looked no less disapproving. He scowled, checked the map, and handed it back -- not to Harry, but to Hermione. "Very well. Pick up your refuse and go."

When Harry moved to reclaim his things, Severus caught at his wrist. For a moment he stared at the crystal nails. He ran the tip of one of his own yellow nails down one. "Except you." He raised his eyebrows. "Unless you would prefer the lecture in their presence?"

Harry heated. "No, sir." He was humiliated at being treated this way in front of his friends, and the resentment came through in his voice. Severus jerked at his wrist.

"Don't look put upon! You could have lost your memory permanently. You could have lost your ability to think. You could have spent the rest of your life in St. Mungo's! I don't care if you were raised by Muggles, you know better than to go reaching into a potion you DON'T KNOW A THING ABOUT!"

"I'm sorry ... I ... I wasn't thinking --"

"I know that!" Severus made a dismissive gesture at Ron and Hermione. "You -- out! Now."

Harry's friends scrambled out of the door, still clutching the things from their pockets. When they were gone, Severus recast the wards. "Harry...."

"Do you have to treat me that way in front of them?

"If you are that stupid, yes!"

"I'm trying to get them to believe you're usually nice to me --"

"That is not my concern."

"Look, I said I'm sorry, all right?"

"I don't want to hear that you're sorry! I want you to not do it again!"

"I won't. I'll remember."

"Will you."

"Promise."

Severus sighed and rested his forehead on his palms. "Harry ... that was terrifying. Touching the potion while it was active would have been dangerous enough, but you disrupted a completed memory record with another one. It could have destroyed your mind -- and both records -- Dumbledore believes that both survived only because they were so closely linked -- the same people, at close to the same time, about related subjects."

"Did you check?"

"After Pomfrey had said she thought you'd be sane, yes."

"How would she tell?"

"I've no idea. She directed three different spells at your head and looked more cheerful with each one." Severus let out a breath and sat back. He seemed more tired than angry, now.

Harry held out his hand. The crystal nails glittered. The effect was rather odd on stubby, unkempt nails. Every smear of dirt beneath them showed. He looked at the softer gleam of the emerald. "It was the will, right? In the ring."

"Yes. She apparently thought I would look there. In hindsight, it makes sense." Severus frowned. "Will you come to the lab with me? I have a potion simmering."

"Why?"

Severus gritted his teeth. "I need to hear you talk. Just to ... to get it into my head that dumb luck pulled you through again."

I must have been frightening to listen to, last night, Harry thought. He remembered Severus, very tender then, reassuring him and stroking the hair back from his eyes. He was sure Severus believed he had forgotten the conversation. For a moment he glowed with the awareness of being loved, but the feeling was almost instantly spoilt by the conviction that that Severus would never show him such affection when he was clearly conscious of it.

"Okay," he said. "Till dinner."

Severus, it turned out, had a secret passage of his own that dipped below floor level and crossed under several corridors to come up in the back of his private lab.

"Brill!" Harry said approvingly. After Severus had set to work, though, Harry's resentment came back. He wondered if Ron and Hermione were worrying about him.

"What are you brooding about?" Severus demanded, as he tested the consistency of a simmering potion.

Harry cast around for something safer to say, and an old grievance surfaced. "I have a friend who loves Potions."

"So?"

"She's a Gryffindor fifth-year named Zoë. She's says you're horrible to her. Do you know her?"

"Not by name. What does she look like?"

"Long, straight, dark brown hair. A bit of a sly look."

Severus frowned thoughtfully. "The half-blood?"

Harry scowled. "Trust you to know the parentage of a girl you don't even know the name of!"

"It actually is a reasonable thing for the instructors to make note of, for new students -- whether or not they were raised in a wizarding household."

"But you don't do anything useful with that information." Harry was furious, now. "It's just so you can harass us and insult us."

Severus sat very still. "I assure you, Harry," he said, after the silence had grown awkward. "I harass all the Gryffindors. Miss Weasley has it no easier than your Zoë, in my class."

"Yeah, well you hate her, too."

Severus pushed away from the bench. "I do not hate her! Stop trying to be unreasonable."

"So will you be nicer to them?"

Severus growled in exasperation. "No!" He turned on Harry. "I will never like teaching Gryffindors. You take ridiculous risks for incomprehensible reasons, and you defend each other aggressively."

"What should we do? Let you walk all over us?"

"You should show your throat, like a good subordinate."

For a moment, Harry was frozen with shock and indignation. Then the pure absurdity of Severus's bland statement struck him, and he burst out laughing. Severus, after a momentary glare, smiled.

"Well, you should. You have no respect for rank."

"And a good thing, too! Wouldn't I be useless if I did?"

Severus shook his head, but he was still smiling. "Are you over your sulk, then?"

Harry hid his face in his hands. "I'm sorry. Hermione says I'm 'more than usually mercurial' now. It just seems so offensive, as the only thing you know about her."

"I do know her surname."

"Oh." Harry blushed. "I guess ... that makes sense." In a fit of honesty, he added, "I don't."

"It is Leland. She is an above-average student, but impatient. Her errors are those made in temper. She should learn better control."

"Submission, you mean."

"In part, yes. At least the appearance of it." Severus scowled. "After our news is out, yes, I will see if I can see this interest you speak of. For now, I am not altering anything. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir. Thank you."

Severus sighed and looked into his cauldron.

"What?"

"Sometimes, I --" Severus stopped. Harry watched him draw himself in, as if he was putting on invisible armor. "Nothing." He pulled over the bowl of firepods.

"Did I do something wrong, sir?"

"No." Severus looked up, but past him, at the fire. He cleared his throat. "Draco tells me you played Fudge beautifully."

"Did he? Great! I think I'm getting better at that sort of thing." Harry sighed. "I still managed to insult Hermione, of course. I should have talked to her beforehand."

"To tell her what?"

"That I wouldn't introduce her as my girlfriend."

Severus pinched the bridge of his nose. He looked like he had a headache. "Harry...."

"Don't expect me to pretend with you. Fudge was only here for an afternoon."

Severus glared at him. "I neither expect nor want you to lie about your personal life to me."

"You don't like to hear about it though," Harry argued. "You tense up any time I mention her."

Severus sighed again. He dropped a firepod into his mixture, and it flared and sank."It's difficult," he said abruptly, his eyes on the potion, "watching you with a Muggle-born girl. I know it's ridiculous, especially considering your mother, but it's there, all the same."

"You don't approve of her."

"But I do approve of her. She's intelligent, and usually sensible, and has the caution you obviously need someone to have for you." Hair fell in a curtain alongside Severus's face as he bent his head over the cauldron. "It's just when I see you with her," he said, more slowly, "I panic, sometimes. You're already a half-blood; she's a sport. Any children of yours would be only a quarter wizarding lines. What if the power doesn't breed true?"

"Well, it's not like I'm marrying her," Harry objected. "I'm just taking her to the ball."

Severus finally looked at him. "I doubt I'll ever be able to watch you holding hands with a girl without evaluating what sort of wife she'd make for you. It's instinct, I expect. Do I tolerate this one, or drive her off?" He extinguished the flame beneath the cauldron and stilled it with a cooling spell that produced great clouds of vile-scented fog. Harry coughed.

"What does that do?"

"Fortunately, nothing, when inhaled." Severus turned to him. "Harry. I can't deny I'd feel more comfortable if you were with a pureblood -- or any wizard-born witch -- but Hermione is a fine girl. Her knowledge is the perfect match to your power, and her caution the perfect match to your recklessness. Bring her to the ball. Marry her, if you wish. I promise, if you stay with her, I will teach myself to tell her her virtues to her face. Do you understand?"

Harry, uncertain, nodded.