Saving Severus Snape

Chapter Three: Mind Meld

Upstairs, in the relative privacy of Ron and Harry's bedroom, Hermione folded her arms. "No, Harry. Absolutely not."

"Uh - what?" Ron looked from one to the other. "What does Harry want you to do?"

"He wants me to tell him how to join his mind with Snape's. Don't you, Harry?"

Harry rubbed his hands along his knees.

"Look, Hermione, it can't really be that dangerous, right? I mean, I'll still be right here, won't I? You can watch me, you can pull me back if it looks like I'm going into too deep."

"No."

"You want to do what?" Ron was disbelieving. "Why would you want to risk your own life for Snape? I don't mean I want him to be tortured by, by You-know-who, 'course I don't . But why does that mean you have to put yourself in danger? You can't stand him! None of us can!

Harry wondered how much to tell them. The previous year, during an Occlumency lesson, he had accidentally spied on Snape's miserable memories of his schooldays. He had promised then that he would not reveal what he had seen to anyone. He had meant it. He had been appalled by the behaviour of his father, and it had taken him a long while to come to terms with that dimension of his character.

"My dad," he said slowly, "when they were all at school, my dad was horrible to Snape. That's partly why he loathes me so much. I sort of feel...that I owe him something for that."

That wasn't all of it. The flashes of union with Snape's thoughts and feelings had exercised a powerful effect on Harry. It would be too much to say that he actually liked Snape, but he had gone some way towards understanding him. Even towards admiring him for the dangerous work he had volunteered to do on behalf of the Order. Harry did not underestimate the bravery required to deliberately set out to deceive Lord Voldemort.

"It's not a question of why you want to do it," Hermione said firmly. "Of course rescuing Snape from Voldemort would be a good thing to do." (Ron snorted into his hand again.) "But, Harry, it's just too dangerous. You heard Lupin."

"If you won't help me, I'll try to do it on my own. Not really knowing what I'm doing. Without anyone to step in if it all goes wrong."

Hermione fixed him with a stony stare in the face of this blackmail. Finally, she sighed.

"Right. Fine. But it's not only getting you to mindmeld with Snape, you know. We've also got to figure out how we can use that to pinpoint his location. And once we've done that, what then?"

"Then we can tell the Order, of course," Harry replied. "And they can come up with some way of getting him out of there. I mean, I know you think I have a hero-complex, Hermione, but really, last year cured me of that... I don't want to get into any more stupid messes that other people die trying to get me out of...."

The bitterness and hurt in Harry's voice as it trailed off into silence caused Hermione's face to soften.

"I'm not promising," she said. "I'll have to do some research, see what I can come up with. I assume all those old books are still up there in the attic?"

____________________________________________________

They had left him alone for some time now. He was vaguely conscious of hunger, more aware of thirst. It didn't seem important. His whole body still burned with the aftermath of fearful pain. He recalled the Longbottoms, tortured by Bellatrix into insanity. Grimly, he wondered whether this fate awaited him. Whether, in fact, when it happened he would embrace it as a relief. That thought almost made him laugh. Certainly they would never allow it to happen if it caused him any respite from suffering. No, they would keep him just on the edge of what could be borne and still live, still retain consciousness of what was going on.

He had no hope. He knew the Order would not be able to find him here, in Voldemort's lair. He wondered how much they would care. He was useful to them, of course, but it wasn't as though any of them actually liked him. Even Dumbledore, although at least Dumbledore had more than once proven that he did in fact trust him. That meant more to him than he was prepared to admit.

Suddenly his vision flicked and shifted, as if the scene in front of him had been pushed sideways. For a moment, he looked out not at his dark cell, but at one of the rooms in 12 Grimmauld Place. Hermione Granger, of all people, was looking at him with an anxious expression on her buck-toothed face. What..? Maybe this was the first sign, the first evidence of his relapse into insanity. And even here, as he sank into madness, it seemed that he was to be haunted by Potter and his irritating little friends. His lip curled mirthlessly. There was no end to the tortures of the Dark Lord....Abruptly, unexpectedly, a stubborn will to resist rose up in him. He would not give in to Voldemort's attentions so easily. He gathered the fragments of his mind together, and thought hard of he, himself, Severus Snape...

"He shut me out," Harry said, opening his eyes. "I was nearly there. He seemed to sense that something was going on, and he raised his defences."

Hermione chewed her lip. "This won't work if he won't let you in. It isn't a forced procedure, it has to be voluntary. On both sides."

"Well, let's just stop here then," advised Ron. "If the success of this depends on Snape letting Harry into his head, I reckon this is a waste of time."

"It is just possible," retorted Hermione, "that, upon reflection, Snape will decide he prefers the company of Harry to that of Lord Voldemort..."

"Wouldn't bet on it," Harry muttered.

"This was all your idea," Hermione reminded him. "Are you giving in?"

"No."

"Right. Close your eyes."

____________________________________________________

This time it was a voice, speaking inside his head. And damn it! Once again his delusions seemed to be revolving around that bloody Potter boy.

"Snape," it said. "Er - Professor, I mean. Can you hear me?"

"Hear you? Hear you? Of course I can hear you, it's me, I can hear my own marbles rattling merrily along as they fall out of my head. Be something else, why don't you. Why don't you be a nice dancing girl offering me promises of unthinkable paradise...."

The voice was patient, and rather soothing, as if talking to someone in a sickroom. "No, really. It's me. Er - Harry. Harry Potter."

"That," he said back to himself in very icy tones, " is precisely what I am complaining about. Don't I have enough to bear at the moment....?"

"Look." The voice became urgent. "I can't do this much longer, it's really difficult. I need to mindmeld with you, right? If we do that, we can find you with a locator spell focused through me...did you get that? I'll come back when I'm strong enough again..."

The voice faded off. Startled, Snape sat up in his chains, precipitating bursts of acute pain. Could it be? Had that really been Harry Potter? Was he really proposing that they join in that most intimate of mental unions....? He shuddered. Surely, this also was yet another product of his abused and disordered brain. The living out of all his nightmares....

The ironic thought vanished. He could hear footsteps. A nightmare of a rather more immediate and terrible nature was about, yet again, to begin.