*sequel to A Gutter Rat’s Tale* Severus and Harry set out to discover the secrets that entwine the only items that Harry's great-grandmother left Severus. Doing so may or may not revive the Snape-Potter family lineage, but it will, very literally, drag ghosts of the past, skeletons from the closet, and counterparts who walked separate paths in life.
Chapter 21
Chapter Summary:
*sequel to A Gutter Rat's Tale* Severus and Harry set out to discover the secrets that entwine the only items that Harry's great-grandmother left Severus. Doing so may or may not revive the Snape-Potter family lineage, but it will, very literally, drag ghosts out of the past, skeletons from the closet, and counterparts who walked separate paths in life.
Posted:
03/06/2005
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Harry, by the time she and Pinky had reached their destination, was quite proud of herself. She had only tripped and lost her balance four times. “This place,” she said firmly to Pinky as they turned another hallway, "is certainly not a cottage. It’s a manor!”
Pinky gave Harry an odd look. "But, Missy," she said, "Dinsmore is a cottage. There is magical space inside that makes it only appear larger." Harry opened her mouth to inquire after the slightly twisted logic, but decided against it. The room they reached and entered was decorated in soft shades of peach, with trimmings of amber. While Harry had never thought that peach was an attractive color, the amber trimming allowed for enough contrast to please rather than clash. The old four-poster bed with a surrounding peach curtain stood in the middle of the room. At the foot of the bed was a locked toy chest. Off to the side of the room was a vanity set. On the other side of the room was a dresser. It was to this dresser that Pinky headed.
It had four drawers, and Pinky had to pull the bottom one out to stand on in order to open the top drawer. Pinky pulled white garments out of the drawer. She turned and looked at Harry. Her eyes were wary beneath her wig. "Isn’t you going to undress?" she asked.
"Oh." Harry's hands flew to her neckline. "Of course." She undid the buttons on her robes as Pinky grabbed the white garments and carried them over to the vanity set. She placed them on the little stool.
"What would Missy like to wear?" Pinky asked respectfully as she straightened up.
"Er, something practical," Harry said. Her hands froze as she reached the buttons directly between her breasts. She stared in something akin to dawning horror. I am a girl. Her robes, normally slightly loose on her frame, were stretched taut across her chest, pulling at the buttons. Harry opened one hand and cupped a breast. She flinched away as soon as the palm of her hand brushed over the surface. A blush lit up her face. "I'm going to have to do this," she said firmly. "I am now a girl, and I'm different." She dropped her hand. "I still feel like a bloke though."
Pinky gave Harry another odd look. She walked over to the closet door that was hidden behind the bed. Harry leaned against the wall and took a deep breath. She watched with morbid fascination as her chest rose and fell with each breath she took. "Oh, sod this," she decided finally. "It's my body!" With a fierce gritting of the teeth, she hurriedly undid the buttons down her chest and abdomen. Once her waist was loosened, she dropped and stepped out of the outer robes. She hooked her hands beneath the material of her shirt and began to hike it up when she froze. It took Harry a moment to realize she had nipples.
"I think I better sit down." Harry dragged herself over to the bed. She pulled the curtain back and laid down on the mattress. "I don't think I feel well." She listened to Pinky sort through the clothes in the closet before she sat up. "I have to do this," she said firmly. "If I don't, Uncle Severus will probably do it for me." She shuddered at the idea of being stripped and dressed by Severus Snape.
With that idea firmly planted in her mind, Harry stood up and pulled her shirt off. She looked at her bare breasts for a long moment, and then timidly poked one. She felt the gentle prod, but there was no fluttering in her stomach or wince of pain.
Harry decided that her chest, aside from being bigger and bouncier, was no different from what it used to be. They're bigger, and extend forward, but other than that, there's no difference. I guess they're sort of like Dudley's flabby chest. She had had nipples when she had still been a he. This is what a woman's supposed to have, this curve. Harry pushed her trousers to her ankles, and then grabbed the waistband of her shorts.
They were loose.
Pinky jumped on to the bed next to Harry. "Here we's go," she said cheerfully as she held out a white pair of panties with bright yellow ribbon ties on the sides, and a white bra with an identical ribbon tie at the cleavage.
"Oh." Harry accepted the bra. She stared reluctantly at the panties. "I think I needs to sit down again," she said as the strength in her legs gave out. This, she knew, would be the hard part.
Draco, Harry2, and Severus cleaned up the dinner dishes while Riddle wandered off somewhere and Francis decided to wait for Harry outside the bedroom she had entered with Pinky. There was a slight argument over who got to do what, but Severus solved the problem by deciding he would wash the dishes, Draco would do the drying, and Harry2 would put them away.
Dependant upon he who was up to his elbows in soapsuds for work, Draco and Harry had rest periods in between stacks of dishes. It allowed them to examine their surroundings. The kitchen they stood in was square-shaped. One wall was covered with various cupboards filled with dishes, pots, pans, and various dry cooking ingredients, such as spices, flours, sugars, grains, and legumes. Against the opposite wall was a long counter. At one side of the counter was a cast-iron cooking stove, and on the other side was three kitchen sinks. In between were cutting boards, sets of cutting knives, and carefully stacked copper cooking pots. The wall to their left had the one exit. All of the visible space of the wall was covered with papers on which various cooking recipes were written upon. When Harry2 had asked after the recipes, Severus' face scrunched up.
"It's the collection of family recipes," he said. He pointed at one. The writing was smooth and small. "This is Pandora's writing. Generations of family recipes cover this wall. I remember," he had pursed his lips thoughtfully, "I remember Black--in my reality--betting how many recipes on the wall. James won the bet, if only because he and I had gotten into an argument earlier that week about how many different recipes were there and we haf both counted."
The fourth and final wall was bare as the stone floor they stood upon. "It's to make room for future generations' recipes," Severus said in explanation.
"I feel nervous," Draco said to no one in particularly as he paused in drying a set of plates.
Severus waved his sponge at Draco. "Get back to work and you'll be too busy to be nervous."
Draco looked at his stack of dishes. "Any reason why we get to clean up supper?" he asked with a frown. It sounded more like, any reason why I have to clean?
Severus scrubbed a pan with an energy that could only be described as vicious, but said nothing. Harry2, carrying a stack of dried dishes over to the cupboard they belonged in, turned around and looked at Draco over his stack. "We don't trust you," he said. "Riddle thinks you're a letch who would spy on Harry while she's dressing. Francis just wants to keep you busy. Oh, and Pinky's helping Harry, so she isn't going to clean."
Draco waved his towel at Harry2. "Why do I need to ogle Harry while he--she's dressing when you've got a lovely arse I get a good view of every time you stand on that stool to put the dishes away."
Harry2's face turned a deep red as he looked from the stool to Draco. "Professor." He set the dishes on the counter next to the cupboard with a heavy clunk. "I want to trade places." He held a fisted hand up. "For the sake of Draco retaining all his teeth."
"If both of you don't stop fighting," Severus said darkly as he looked up from his pan, "I'll make the two of you sorry."
Harry2 and Draco studied Severus for a long moment, uncertainty clear in their eyes. They looked at each other. "What can he do?" Draco asked finally. "He's just a ghost."
Harry2 slowly backed away from Draco. "Yeah? Have you ever had to fight poltergeists before? I know someone who makes a living off of it, and I'm not the only member of the family who tries to avoid her because you never know if she's on assignment or not."
Draco turned about to grab something to dry and found Severus glaring at him.
"You're pushing it," Severus said. He dropped his sponge and stepped away from the pan. "Finish this while I go looking for Francis." He floated through the wall and was gone.
Draco tossed his towel to the side and rolled up his sleeves. He dipped his hands into the water, only to yank them out immediately afterwards. "That's cold!" he exclaimed.
Harry2 walked over to the sink where the dishwater was. He dipped one hand into it. The water around his hand began to steam and boil. "No, it's not," he said. He withdrew his hand and flicked the water at Draco.
"Show off," Draco grumbled as he grabbed the sponge and plunged his hands into the sink water. "AIIEE!" He yanked his hands out again. "That's hot!"
Severus found Francis seated on the floor with his back against the wall. To his left was the door of the room Harry was in. Without saying a word, Severus sat down beside Francis. Francis had his hands clasped between his legs and looked as if he were seriously pondering the more frightful mysteries of life. "I was wondering," he said after a long while, "if we ever get Tom Riddle to come with us and we do get my Pandora back, what's going to happen."
"Because you're both married to Pandora?" Severus asked.
"There was that too, although I was mostly concerned for the sake of everyone who had to suffer immensely at Voldemort's hands, and how it's going to be with him joining us." Francis growled under his breath, and suddenly and almost violently raked his fingers through his hair. He pulled his goggles off and rubbed his sleeve over the glass. "Tom Riddle doesn't feel safe," he said fiercely.
"No one with his amount of power feels safe," Severus said pointedly. "Except Dumbledore."
"But," said Francis, "that was always because he never meant anyone harm, and he actually cares if he did hurt someone. When people are in his presence, they feel this concern, they feel that Dumbledore can be trusted. Tom Riddle? He doesn't care. If you get in his way and the easiest way to get around you is to get rid of you--let alone make it quick and painless, which isn't often the case--he'll probably do it. He's ruthless. In every reality, he always has been and likely or not, he probably always will be. The difference between Tom Riddle and Voldemort is Riddle doesn't go to such extremes. I mean, he is ruthless in what he needs to do, but he isn't trying to, well, take over the world. He's not trying to prove something like Voldemort does, so he isn't doing such awful things."
"He's a Slytherin," Severus said as if that single sentence explained the entire situation. "In that aspect, Tom Riddle is the same. We are efficient in what we do. But we have to bring him along, one way or another. As powerful as he is, I don't think Riddle can destroy Voldemort across so many different realities."
Francis rubbed his neck. "I know." He sounded mournful as he dropped his hand. "And knowing all of this brings up Pandora. I don't think Tom Riddle will see her any less than the woman he married, even if she's my wife. But I won't give her up. That brings this entire matter to a draw." Subconsciously, Francis' hand pressed against his torso, where a single scar ran from one side to the next. "I don't know what to do. I know we have to bring him, but . . ." His voice trailed off. He shrugged sheepishly. "But I just don't feel comfortable with him."
"Maybe it's because of what he did." Severus looked pointedly at where Francis had his hand pressed. Francis nodded his head in agreement.
"When I was a little boy and living with family in Australia, I had a little cow pony for myself. One day, my uncle Kenny decided that I was big enough to ride what he called a real horse, and I thought was a monster at the time. The horse smelled my fear. When I was on his back and reaching for the reigns, he gave a little hop and easily unseated me. It was a long while before I could actually agree to riding another horse, rather than my little pony." Francis smiled as he leaned back against the wall and relaxed. "It takes a while for us to recover our trust in something that has hurt us," he said.
Severus nodded glumly. "If the trust is ever recovered," he muttered beneath his breath.
Harry2 sensed Riddle long before Draco did. Voldemort always gave Harry2 the impression of a diseased corpse. Tom Riddle, although not a diseased corpse, still felt as if something dark and unnatural abode within. Harry2 felt the same unnatural darkness every time Pandora's Box was opened.
Harry2 was not a stranger to the darkness. The Beast's unnatural darkness was an overwhelming, vast depth. In Him, the unnatural darkness was so deep and so concentrated it drove mortals insane. It was the well of all unnatural darkness that existed in every living creature. It was the Nature of the Beast.
The Beast said as much to Harry2 after he had earned the Ember Death, the black dragon tattoo. The Beast went on to explain the natural darkness was the means and motives to destroy. Harry2 recognized it as being such. He knew it was the means and motives to destroy, and he felt it within every member of his family but his mother and grandfather. Marcia, for all the nuisance that she was, had little motive to destroy. She had little motive to do anything she disliked that required effort, and fighting was the one thing she avoided more often than responsibility. Harry2's grandfather, Turk, was a rune demon as Harry2 was. However, unlike Harry2, his personality tied in with his element, and it is difficult to have any motivation to destroy anything when one's personality is based completely upon sunshine and earth. Harry2 never knew his grandfather to be anything less than patient and cheerful.
But for all of his demon kin, only the Beast's unnatural darkness exceeded Voldemort's.
Gradually, as Harry2 grew older, he learned to differentiate the differences of levels of unnatural darkness. Some people had greater levels of unnatural darkness than others. It was not until Harry2 met with a dementor in his third year at Hogwarts did he realize the difference of levels depended completely upon the individual's motives and means. The greater the power a person had, the greater the means to carry out the motivation of destruction. However, greater power did not equate to greater levels of unnatural darkness.
In Harry2's experience, levels of unnatural darkness remained fairly consistent. As he understood it, a person was stable in their boundaries of destruction. Merely because Tom Riddle was not on Voldemort's level of violence did not mean that he was incapable of doing less or he dared not to do what Voldemort did. People had different ways of achieving different ends. The greater the level of unnatural darkness, the more ruthless and horrific their means. The level of motivation and inclination of ruthlessness was not dependant upon the level of power in which to obtain the means. Dumbledore, who was the most powerful human that Harry2 knew, had less unnatural darkness than Snape.
The unnatural darkness was not so much as an inclination for ruthlessness, but rather a tolerance factor for the more chaotic, more brutal actions. While there may be people whose power equal or surpassed Voldemort's, their level of unnatural darkness was smaller because they believed some means did not justify the end. There were some things some people would never permit themselves to do, such as killing another human being, or striking a helpless person. For all Harry2 knew, there were people out there even more powerful than Dumbledore or Voldemort, but their level of unnatural darkness--their limit or tolerance for desperate means--was miniscule compared to his.
It did not matter to Harry2 if this Tom Riddle was not Voldemort, if this Tom Riddle was, for all intents and purposes, "good". His means for an end were no less limited than Voldemort's. Tom Riddle's level of unnatural darkness, while smaller than Voldemort's, was too large for Harry2's comfort. As far as Harry2 was concerned, Tom Riddle warranted watching.
When the man entered the kitchen, Harry2 knew it. He looked up from where he was stacking the dishes and silently turned to study Riddle as he silently stood in the open door. The man's eyes glanced over him, seemingly disinterested, before they settled upon Draco.
Draco was busy concentrating piling the soap suds on top of one another. "Look!" he said suddenly without glancing over at Harry2. He pointed at his pile of soap suds with a silly grin. "It's the Astronomy Tower!" He squashed them with the palm of his hand. "Ha! And that's the pens where Hagrid always kept his animals!" With a flourish of his hands, Draco began to remodel the pile of soap suds. They all looked the same to him, so Harry2 glanced back at Riddle.
One eyebrow arched elegantly upward. Riddle's eyes shifted from Draco to Harry2. He shrugged, and then stepped silently over to Draco's side. He was four steps from Draco when the blond man said, "And this is what happens to anyone who sneaks up on me." He decimated his pile of soap suds with a single swipe of his hand that caused them to fly across the counter. He turned around to face Riddle.
"Although," Draco said conversationally as he leaned backwards against the sink and crossed his ankles, "I'm probably not strong enough to do something like that to someone such as yourself." Draco's eyes were narrowed and his lips were pressed together into a single pale line. His side profile struck Harry2 as vicious. His scar was clear from this view, and was a menacing gash that marred his face and heightened the ominous air that clung to him.
Riddle said nothing as he watched Draco with a hint of amusement in his all-knowing eyes. He crossed his arms before himself and studied Draco with a sense of detachment. Draco watched him in a suspicious, dangerous manner. Harry2 sat down on his stool and wondered bemusedly of what would happen if he started to describe what he saw in a sport announcer's voice.
Both Riddle and Draco stood so still, they appeared to be statues. Knowing he could potentially wait forever for either Riddle or Draco to be the first to break the silence, Harry2 stood up. "This is such a fascinating conversation," he said. No one looked in his direction. Harry2 glanced from person to person, and then shrugged. "Neither of you are going to get anywhere really fast," he told them knowingly.
"Good point," said Riddle. He turned from Draco to face Harry2. "How bad is your reality?"
"How bad?" Harry2 scratched his head. "What do you mean?"
"Exactly what I said. How bad is your reality?"
Harry2 smiled. "Well, that depends which reality. Much of my youth was spent at the Winter's Ambit, which my grandmother rules, and that's in an entirely different realm, let alone reality. Since that was with my family, I guess one could call it bad, or at least uncomfortable." Harry held up both his hands, the fingers splayed wide. "My grandmother adopted two children--Mom and Uncle Nandin--and has ten natural children. Aunt Adora and Aunt Heather are my great-great aunts, since they're grandmother's aunts. You'd think they'd have grown up by now, but they haven't. And they're a bad influence on my ten aunts and uncles.
"And then there's Greer where the Beast dwells in physical form. I've been there multiple times because it's where I got this," Harry2 pointed at his tattoo, "and Mom believes in my knowing all the family. It's where the Beast dwells, and since family is the guardians, they have to be there. Of course, I didn't always like visiting them. And then the final reality where I live is, of course, Earth. Mostly at Hogwarts."
He crossed his arms before his chest. "Greer is violent, which is to be expected, since it's the home for demons. Winter's Ambit is cold. Hogwarts . . . Well, my reality hasn't been that bad, comparatively speaking. Unless you mean what Voldemort's done to it. Thus far, it's not as bad as Greer, but if you remove the demons and how it's their nature to be violence, well . . . It's bad. Not like Draco's, though."
Riddle's eyes flickered. He turned to Draco and quietly studied him for a moment. "What of your reality?" he asked softly.
Draco watched Riddle with narrowed eyes. "Before or after you transfigured Nagini?"
Riddle's eyebrow slowly arched up. "How was it in comparison between before and after transfiguration?"
Draco pushed away from the sink. His arms hung loosely at his side, but Harry2 noticed that his left hand twitched to where his sword handle, currently missing, usually hung slung across his back. "Before you transfigured Nagini, it was a nightmare. You being alive at the time, of course." Again, Riddle's eyebrow arched up, but he remained silent as he watched Draco. "You killed Muggles right and left, doing such heinous crimes that I couldn't describe them if I felt like it. Well, maybe if I felt like it, but I certainly don't, right now. You tortured any wizards or witches that refused to join your side, and if that didn't work, fed them to nasty creatures you summoned from some hell. The Nasties didn't kill the witches and wizards immediately, but apparently it served for some bloody good fun. They would tear the flesh from the body with snapping mouths filled with razor sharp teeth. People were torn apart until the Nasties had their fill, and left the person. Sometimes the people lived through the process, their flesh stripped from their bones. You left them to linger in the dust." Draco stubbornly gritted his teeth. "My mother died like that.
"We fought you, and soon, the only safe place in the European world was Hogwarts. As powerful as you were, or are, or whatever, you couldn't tear the protective barriers down and get at the people inside. At least, not all at once and by yourself." Draco paused a moment. Riddle waited for him to continue, standing as still as stone. Harry2 watched them avidly.
"You attacked," Draco said. A far-away look flashed momentarily across his face. "You hit Hogwarts with everything you had. Hexes, charms, curses. It tore the place apart, devastating what had once been a beautiful castle. It was a heritage ruined, destroyed beyond any hope for repair. After more than a week, Harry--my Harry, still the Boy Who Lived and the only known person who could ever face you in a fight--went out to meet you." Draco straightened his shoulders and glared at Riddle. "He killed you," he said with a hint of pride in his voice. "But it was what killed him in the end, also. You two were connected so if one lived, the other lives, and if one died, so did the other. Before you died though, you transfigured Nagini into a woman, and she continued your devastation of the world."
Draco turned around. He gripped the edge of the sink and stared at the soap suds for a moment. He picked up his sponge and dropped it into the water. "Maybe she wasn't as bad as you," he said softly as he splashed about in the water. He grabbed a handful of silverware and rubbed them with his sponge. "I don't know. The world had already gone into such ruins before then, so there wasn't that much left to devastate.
"You turned nuclear warheads on Muggles armies when they decided to fight against the mysterious terror ripping apart Great Britain. The radiation mutated and twisted people in ways that magic was incapable of doing. Nagini selected those people as her servants. She brought them into an army. They were little more than animals, and worse than the Nasties that Voldemort fed his enemies to."
Draco stared at his handful of silver. One by one, they slipped out of his hand into the water. He leaned tiredly against the sink and covered his face with his hands. After a deep, ragged breath, he dropped his hands and swallowed as he stared at the water.
"You left the world half-ruined. After the battle at Hogwarts, there weren't many people left to fight Nagini. Unlike you, who wanted to take over the world and rebuild it as an ideal kingdom, she just wanted to destroy it. I fought the best I could, but the war was lost before the battle could be decided." Draco looked up from the water. He stared at the wall ahead but did not seem to see it. His eyes were glazed over and looked wistful. "I can remember, some nights before Francis and the others Jumped into my reality, watching the skies and wondering about how different things could be," a dark look appeared in his eye and Draco dropped his chin, "if Voldemort had been strangled in the crib."
Harry2 eyed Riddle to gaudge his reaction to Draco's words, but Riddle's face showed only cool interest.
"As I watched the skies, bright sparks of light began to disappear, as if blotted out of existence, disappearing forever. And the world grew colder as I realized we weren't the only planet that was dying." Draco looked over his shoulder at Riddle. "Balance is such a delicate thing. I never stopped and thought about it before. But I know that it only takes a little bit for balance to change. If one world falls in the Universe, does it cause other worlds to fall as well? If one reality dies, do all the other realities follow suit? If the balance is upset, doesn't it send little shockwaves everywhere, because everything depends on balance for order, and without the balance, is the change absolute?"
He shrugged as he went back to washing dishes. "I don't like you," he said, "but I don't want any other person to ever have to live through what I went through. I don't want them to see the corruption and desolation as I have. I don't want them to see their lover fall. I don't want them to see their mother ripped apart and then left to die in the hot sun." His dangerous air fell away, until all that was left behind was a little boy trying to cope with the large, cruel world. He looked over at Harry2 imploringly. "It's . . . it's beyond anything."