And So Life Goes On...

part of "The Aevum Series"

Chapter Seven
Remembering Again

"I can't believe this!" He threw his arms up; glared at his friends; and slammed his fist into the wall because despite what they had done--he could not imagine hurting them. "How could you keep this from me? How could you?" He turned his watery eyes to them, murky and pained green eyes. "I TRUSTED YOU!" he screamed. "How could you do this to me? WHY?"

Ron stood there, his face so pale that he looked like a ghost--like a Hogwarts ghost, which was real--magic was real, and they had kept it from him. Harry wanted to choke his best friend, strangle him for keeping this a secret. Did they think they were protecting him? After all that he had been through, did they not think he could handle reality? Did they think him crazy? Did they think he would sink into the darkness that freed him? Why could they not trust him? Why did they not believe in him?

"I'm sorry," Ron whispered, lowering his eyes to the ground. "We thought it would be best if you weren't reminded, especially since--for the longest time your magic was gone."

"That's because you've been drugging me!" Harry shouted, balling his fists up once again. "Those pills that Snape made, did you force him to? I know him, I know him very well and he wouldn't do this to me, he wouldn't!"

"Are you so sure?" Ron asked softly, patiently--unlike the impulsive and thoughtless Gryffindor Harry used to know. "And how well do you really think you know, Harry? He was a Death Eater, and he certainly didn't join because he wanted to do what was right. He definitely didn't stay with Voldemort just so he could spy for Dumbledore. He enjoyed the Dark Arts, the rapes, pillages, murders, and whatever depravities that Death Eaters partake in. And--"

"Ron," Hermione said with a warning note, "that's enough."

"And you," Harry snarled, shoving his face in front of hers, "I thought of you as a sister, and this is what you've done to me. You've taken away my life! You've taken away my magic! You've taken who I am away from me! How could you, Hermione? You..." he whispered harshly, "you who I trusted like a sister."

Hermione bit her bottom lip and the tears she had been holding back fell. "Harry..." She reached toward him, her arms opened and welcoming like they had been before. "I..."

"Don't touch me!" he snapped. "Don't you dare!"

"Can we explain?" Hermione asked, her eyes earnest and pleading. "Please Harry?"

"What can you possibly explain to me?" he asked viciously. "What can you possibly tell me that would make me forgive you? I know everything Hermione, I know all that you don't want me to remember. You," he said, glancing toward Ron and Ginny, "you and you might have thought it wise, thought it best to keep what I have done away from me, thinking I would be depressed to know what depths I corrupted myself to and ended up not using in order to defeat Voldemort. But whatever sins or depravities I have committed are nothing compared to what I would do."

Harry threw his head back and laughed a terrible laugh. "I thought my friends would have known better, would have trusted me to do what was right--believe in me as the Harry Potter you were friends with for more than ten years. But obviously I was wrong. You don't believe that I did all that I did for the good of all." He paused and closed his eyes, sinking down to his knees. "I admit that it was also for revenge, but as I started to live again I realized that even though my godfather was gone, Hagrid, and... Remus... I still had a life to live, which you took from me."

Harry drew in a ragged breath. "Go," he said. "Leave. I don't want anything to do with you anymore." The three of them stood there, looking at him with the defiant look he often used to see in himself. "GO!" he screamed. "LEAVE! I want nothing to do with you! Nothing! LEAVE ME ALONE!"

Ron and Ginny took a step forward, but Hermione grabbed both of them and shook her head. "Leave us," she said. "Leave the two of us alone."

"But..." Ginny protested.

"Hermione, it's not--"

"Leave," she said. "Harry won't do anything to me but scream. Please."

Reluctant as they were, they did as she asked. When they were gone, she dropped to her knees next to him though she did not try to touch him. All she did was stare at him, look at him with an understanding and love in her brown eyes that made it so fucking hard for him to hate her. Merlin, he thought with disgust, all I want is for her to hold me when she has betrayed me all along. Damn her, damn me, damn Severus. Fuck Albus.

"Will you listen to me?"

Harry's eyes met hers, and he wondered if his eyes were as dead as they used to be after Remus died, or if they were filled with the same pain and anger that were present when Sirius died. "What is there to explain?"

She blinked away a few more of her tears. "Everything."

-

Foolish him, Harry thinks and shudders. Mindless, boneless and hard. "God," he moans as he takes one little breath before he is again kissed breathless. He can believe this, believe that Snape is his ex-lover, believe it because of the way he kisses. Snape kisses him like it is a homecoming, like there is nothing he doesn't know. "Oh god!"

"Yes," Snape hisses, his nails digging into Harry's hips, bruising him no doubt, "you're mine. Mine."

The first thought that comes to Harry's mind is that somehow he is not surprised that Snape is possessive. Not surprised that Snape is rough, passionate, and harsh. This is the way this man--no, wizard--is. Harry can accept this because he once knew him, and he knows this again? He has a hard time separating what he knows from memory, from observation, and from being told.

Not that he can think much when he is being given the kiss of his life. Not that he has many kisses to compare this to. Not that he remembers any of his past kisses. Not that he can even know if this is as good as the other ones Snape has given him. The dilemma and problem of being an amnesiac, he thinks bitterly. If only this could be taken away, but will Snape help him? Can he trust him? Everything points to the contrary. Snape is the doctor who drugged him; Snape can't want him to remember, and yet...

"Why would I want to obliviate you?" Snape inquires softly, darkly. "I want you to remember, but you being the stupid idiot that you are, refuse to listen to my instructions."

Snape pulls him closer, too close as Harry can feel Snape's erection pressing against his stomach. "You stupid, foolish, ignorant boy," Snape whispers, pulling away from the drowning kiss, "it's about time you clued in, remembered something, pulled something out of the abyss that I can work with."

"Why?" Harry asks, slightly afraid and repulsed. How could he like someone like this? Not that he can deny that he is aroused, but he would think it would be someone like Draco--someone slender and utterly beautiful, not someone like Snape, whose beauty has been hidden years ago. "Why would you help me when you caused me to forget?"

"Not on purpose!" Snape roars. "Never on purpose," he whispers with a dangerous note. "Never." Snape presses even closer to him, until there is too much touching, far too much. He must feel Harry's erection, and his smile is probably an indication of that. "You want me," Snape murmurs, "who would have thought a good Harry would want me? And yes, I suppose your question is a valid one. Why would I want to help this Harry," Snape murmurs, his hand caressing Harry's throat, "this Harry whom they love and I hate."

"Draco said you hated me," Harry blurts out and gasps. Shit! he curses. Why did he say that? Is he absolutely as stupid as the Slytherin says he is? Slytherins? Harry's eyes widen, a memory, he remembers--he closes his eyes and shudders in Snape's arms--one small recollection. "You're a Slytherin."

"Draco," Snape snaps, "Draco Malfoy." His grip on Harry tightens until he is certain there will be bruises. "When did you ever come into contact with him?"

"You're a Slytherin," Harry repeats. "Head of House." Another random thought, random memory. "Potions professor."

"Yes," Snape confirms, his fingers digging further into Harry's flesh, painfully. "Yes, I am. You're remembering, but that still won't save you from my inquiry, Harry." Snape shoves his face further at him until his greasy nose is pressed against Harry's. "When did you see Draco Malfoy?"

-

"Harry, will you listen to me?" she asked tentatively. "Please?"

He stared at her, saw her tearstained face and felt a little bit of him cave in. Hermione, he remembered past and present, had always been the pillar he has leaned up. Before Severus and Remus, there was she. And after them, it had always been her. She had been a mother and a sister, and a best friend. What more could a person ask for in someone than what she had given?

"Harry?"

"I'll listen," he said sharply. "But I can't promise to forgive."

"It is enough just to listen," she murmured, her hands fumbling in her lap. "Thank you for this much. I know how hard this must be for you. I... I can't even imagine what you're going through, but please believe that we didn't set out to betray you. We thought we were doing the best thing for you."

"Why?" he asked. "Why?"

"Once you had fallen, sacrificing your life for Professor Snape's," she began, "we brought you back to Hogwarts because it was the safest place with rogue Death Eaters still around. A team from St. Mungo's came to see what they could do. At first, at the start, we thought you were lost to us, so deep and so lost in whatever place you were--a place between life and death--that we almost gave up. But Professor Snape refused, probably thinking he was obligated to you with a life debt because you saved him with your sacrifice. He created a potion called Affero Aevum, a life-giving potion that sustained you and brought you back."

Almost romantic for him, Harry thought.

"Even with that miraculous breakthrough," she continued, "it took nearly a year for the potion to start clearing the fog you were dwelling in and pull you out of the land of in-between. You were given a dosage every day, and there seemed to be no side affects--but there was one."

"What?" he demanded. "What was the side effect?"

"You have to realize that Professor Snape was desperate to save you, for whatever reason, and he didn't tell us that using this potion would do this to you. And regardless of whether he had told us, we still would have gone ahead and used it. It was a small thing," she said, "to give up to have you back with us once again."

"What was it?"

She took a deep breath. "It used your magic," she whispered. "The potion used your magic to sustain your life and bring you back. And when it pulled you back, there was a horrible backlash that almost severed your magic from you. It was with the greatest care that St. Mungo's healers were able to reconnect your magical sphere with your physical self, but even then they couldn't guarantee that you would be able to use your magic again. After all, it was nearly cut off forever and--"

"That still doesn't explain why you didn't tell me the truth," he stated. "Or how you even knew that my magic and memories would be gone so that you could go along with this ruse."

"Can't you see how?" she cried. "The potion didn't bring you back immediately. We knew about two months before you woke up that you would wake up. During that time, your brain activity had picked up but your magical aura was nearly nonexistent." She looked toward him with regret in her eyes. "You must know we didn't want you to know everything that you had had but could never have again! We didn't want you to regret and hate the life we had tried so hard to give you back. There have been many, like you, that have lost their magic and gone insane with grief." She bit her lip. "We didn't want you to be one of them. We wanted you to be happy."

"But how did you know my memories would be gone?" he asked. "Did Albus have me obliviated?"

She shook her head. "We learned from early diagnostic scans that your neocortex had been heavily damaged when you fell, and brain injuries are notoriously difficult for even the best of mediwizards to heal--so they decided not to tamper with it. They let it heal normally and were quick to caution us that you would probably not remember anything for a while."

"And so I didn't and then somewhere along the way, I started regaining my magic much to everyone's surprise," Harry murmured dangerously, his green eyes blazing with a life he hasn't remembered feeling for the longest time. "But everyone was afraid of what I would do when I realized you had kept this from me, and somehow I don't believe this story--don't believe this is for my own good.

"I don't believe you," he stated flatly, his voice beginning to rise. "I have no idea what you did to Snape to get him to make a potion that would strip my magic for a time, but you and everyone I thought I could trust wanted me powerless. WHY?" he screamed. "Are you afraid I'll turn into the next Dark Lord?"

"No!" she exclaimed, reaching out for him. "No, never, Harry!"

He jerked his arm away and sent her falling on her side. "Don't touch me," he warned. "Don't ever touch me again. I don't want anything to do with you or anybody else here. Do you understand me?"

"Harry--"

"I don't ever want to see any of you again."

-

"I mean, I ran into Dr--why should I answer that?" Harry blurts out, feeling his cheeks redden despite the blood that has surged to his groin. Snape might not be an attractive man, but god did the man know how to kiss. And the way Snape holds him and presses against him drives him mad. Who would have thought he liked someone dominating and possessive. "I mean--"

"I know what you mean," Snape retorts, one of his hands releasing Harry's hips to reach up to touch Harry's face. "I always know what you mean, even when you don't realize it yourself." Snape's finger traces Harry's bruised lips. "It is so like you to ask an impertinent question like that, so like the Harry that I once hated."

"Why did you stop?" Harry asks. His green eyes plead with Snape to tell him something, anything that might give him hope that there is someone he can trust in and depend on who has been there all this time. For some reason, he has this feeling that he can trust Snape--because he is his ex-lover or... something else? It's just this feeling, this confidence. "Stop hating me? Why?"

Snape's hand drifts down to grip his chin firmly. "Because you turned into someone that I could no longer hate."

"What? What changed?" Harry leans into Snape instinctively, feeling the older man's penis poking into his stomach. He doesn't care--even likes it. "How did I change?"

"You became darker, quieter, and more prone to solitude," Snape murmurs, his lips so close to Harry's that but for an inch they would be kissing again. "But when you were not alone, you were with me--learning all that I could teach you, all which helped to change you, to morph you into a different Harry than they wanted. They said I corrupted you, tainted you with the Dark Arts, but I didn't do anything you didn't ask for." Snape's nose touches his own. "You asked, Harry, and I gave. And I like to think you always had the darkness in you, but you just needed coaxing for it to come out--eager as you were to please your friends and be somebody you weren't. But with me, you became what you were truly supposed to be."

"I..." Harry begins, his lips and body trembling, "I don't know who to trust."

Snape tilts Harry's face up. "You say, even when you hated me in your sixth year, that you trusted me. And when we became lovers, there wasn't anything that you kept from me." Snape briefly presses his lips against Harry's, softly and then withdraws. "You trusted me then, and you can again--if you wish to."

"I think... I think I can trust you."

"Good," Snape murmurs and his hold on Harry's chin tightens--bruising hard, "now tell me, when did you see Draco Malfoy?"

-

"What are you doing here?"

"Harry," Albus said, reaching out with his wrinkled, old hands but Harry jerked away before he touched him, "I'm sorry for what I did."

"If you're really sorry, then you leave me alone!" Harry screamed. "I don't want anything to do with you and your manipulative ways again!"

"Harry..."

"Don't call me Harry!" he snapped. "I was your weapon in the war, but I won't ever be again. I've done what you've asked, now leave me in peace. Do you understand me? Or must I spell it out for you the Muggle way? I don't care for your apologies or whatever you care to say to ease your conscience. I'm through with being your puppet."

"I never asked you to do what you did," Albus remarked. "Did I ever tell you that you had to defeat Voldemort?"

Harry threw his head back and laughed bitterly. "You didn't have to tell me because your own subtle persuasions told me exactly what you wanted from me. You got me to do everything like a hero should do, but I'm not quite in your control anymore and you're afraid of me--aren't you, Albus?"

"No," Albus denied, his eyes and face looking tired and sad, "no, I've never been afraid of you, Harry. All I've ever wanted for you is to be happy and to live a normal life. That is what you've always wanted, isn't it?"

While Harry wanted to earnestly deny this fact, he had to admit parts of him did want a normal life. He just hated how all-knowing Albus was, how he seemed to know the right thing to say in every occasion. Did others find it as infuriating as he did? Harry knew that Severus did.

"It was wrong of you to assume that," Harry whispered fiercely. "You should have asked me first, should have. I still can't believe you did this to me and I can't believe that Severus helped you."

It tore into Harry's very being that the man he had trusted with his life--that he had sacrificed his life for--had been instrumental in eradicating his former life, the life he had shared with that exasperating bastard. It was the reason Harry refused, absolutely refused to speak to Snape even though he had started calling him--as if to pretend he didn't know the truth. He rebuffed his friends the same way, and he was thinking about putting the Fidelius Charm on his flat just to avoid everyone. He could not forgive and he could not forget. Merlin, why had they done this?

"He felt it was in your best interest," Albus murmured, sitting down on a chair like an arthritic man. "As Hermione has probably already told you, many wizards lose their minds when they discover they are turned into squibs. There was hardly any doubt in anyone's mind that the same would happen to you, you being as powerful as you are."

"Then what justification remained after my magic came back?" Harry snapped. "Especially when you dosed me with a potion to block my magic and kept my memories at bay!"

"Can you say, Harry," Albus said earnestly, "that you're unhappy?"

Harry's face did not soften nor did it harden. "I would say my life is unfulfilled, incomplete, and I feel more betrayed than I ever have."

"By us," Albus added in a soft voice. "I'm sorry Harry."

"Apologies do no good when you don't think you're wrong," Harry said sharply. "And you don't, do you? You don't think you're wrong, and you've come here because you think I'll forgive and forget. You're hoping you can manipulate me the way you often have, get me to do things--like defeat Voldemort because I thought it my fucking duty to do that! Well, I'll tell you this, Albus, I AM NOT YOUR PUPPET any longer. And I don't bloody care what you, my friends, or even Snape thinks. I..."

"I'm sorry Harry, but this is for the best," Albus repeated and held up his wand. Before Harry could even register what Albus was doing, he uttered, "Abdo Animus." He stared at the blank faced young man. "You were so happy before you remembered, so happy... and you must not remember that you ever remembered."

-

"I ran into him," Harry says, trying to back away and having little success. "One day, more than a week ago."

"And?"

"He told me the truth a few days after we met," he mumbles, his eyes shifting to look anywhere but at the fathomless depths of Snape's. "Unlike you and the rest of my friends, he told me what I needed to know!"

Snape jerks his chin until Harry is forced to look into the dark eyes. "Did you believe everything he said Harry?" Harry tries to nod but it is impossible to move his head without hurting himself. "Because if you did," Snape murmurs darkly, dangerously, "that would be highly foolish of you. Don't you know that you and Draco used to hate each other? That you two used to be rivals? That his father on numerous occasions has tried to kill you?"

Harry knows everything except the last bit. But that makes sense, considering that he had remembered that Draco's father had spied on him. He supposes their mutual dislike was the reason for the spying. He ought to feel more alarm, more panicked, but all Harry feels is ambivalence. It's hard to be angry at Draco when the blond is the only one willing to tell him the truth. It's far easier to be mad at everyone else, Albus--his Headmaster, his friends, and his lover--Snape.

"Who cares?" Harry retorts, not caring that his eyes are flashing defiantly and disrespectfully. "At least he is willing to tell me the secrets everyone else is keeping from me!" Harry jabs a finger into Snape's surprisingly muscular chest. "And you--you being who you are to me--you should have been the first one to tell me the truth! But no, instead it's Draco that has to! Why didn't you?" he cries out, and to his horror--he finds his eyes are tearing up. "Why did you do that? How could you? How!"

For a moment, Snape says nothing and they stare at each other, green eyes looking into dark brown, nearly black ones. They seem to be locked together as if there is nothing in the world to do but look at one another. Finally, Snape releases his hold on Harry and takes a few steps back. The expression on his face is indiscernible. Has this man--his lover--always been this hard to read?

"Harry," Snape begins with a ragged sigh, "I have already said what I did to cause your memory loss wasn't done on purpose, which I suppose is misleading. I did what I did because I was bound to by a wizard's oath." He pauses and starts to pace. "I think it would be better for me to say that it was not my purpose for you to be an amnesiac. But under my oath to protect you and uphold your happiness, I was foolish not to look at the fine print. What protects you and makes you happy is according to what Albus Dumbledore and your friends," he sneers, "think rather than what you would want.

"However, if you could start to remember, to know, and to realize--then I would have something to work with. But I cannot betray what I swore under the oath unless you mention it yourself. Think about," Snape continues, stopping in front of Harry, "what you said and what my reply was, nothing was out of the ordinary. It was you that first indicated that you knew what magic was. It was you that mentioned a magic spell, obliviate. You are the one that has to remember, or in this case be told by someone not under the oath. Albus, the old meddling fool, thought it best for you to gradually come into your memories. And yet when you did the first time--"

Harry jerks suddenly and nearly trips over his own feet but for Snape reaching out to steady him. "The first time?" he cries. "What first time?"

"Why the first time you remembered of course," Snape retorts bitterly. Harry recognizes that the negative emotion isn't directed at him but rather someone else--some old man. "The time which Albus and your friends failed to inform me of," Snape snarls, his face screws up into one of utter distaste before it drops back into scornful indifference, "until after the Abdo Animus spell, after your memories had been hidden so deeply and carefully that you probably will never uncover them without much help."

"And you will help me?" Harry asks, his eyes turning to Snape with hope and trust. There is such an honesty in Snape's resentment that Harry can believe this, but how much faith should he have in him? After all, this man--his lover had not tried nearly hard enough to get his memories back. But then, who could he trust? Draco? Maybe, and maybe not. "You will, won't you?"

"I will," Snape vows. "I swear."

"Will you answer a question first?"

Snape nods. "Yes."

"Why did you not try harder?"

-

"What?" Harry mumbled in confusion. "Where am I?" He glanced up at Albus with dazed green eyes, then saw in the background his friends... Hermione, Ron, Ginny, and even Neville. "What happened?"

"You passed out," Albus said simply, though his voice sounded weary and strained. "But you seem to be okay. Do you want me to call Dr. Snape in to see you? He's away on an emergency call or something, but your friends," he remarked, gesturing to those behind him, "asked that I come since I'm familiar with your case, even though I'm only an assistant."

"Oh." Harry grimaced and rubbed his temples. "My head hurts," he croaked. "It really hurts."

"Blackouts are like that," the old man stated soothingly. His face was anything but calm, seemingly conflicted with stress wrinkles. "I think your friends said you were starting to remember something though, and that's probably why your head hurts as much as it does."

"I was?" Harry glanced toward his friends, noting their concern and worry, and thinking it was a bit strange--why weren't they as happy as he was? "That's good, isn't it?"

"Of course, it is," Hermione said, smiling at him. "It's wonderful news."

Albus nodded and asked tightly, "Do you remember anything now?"

Harry tried to reach into his brain and pull out a memory, but all he could recall was stuff he already knew to be true--nothing new. "No," he whispered with disappointment. "No, I don't."

Albus patted his hand gently, his lips twisting into a forced smile. "I'm sure you'll eventually remember everything. It takes time, Mr. Potter. It takes much time, indeed."

-

"Why, Snape?" Harry demands. "Why did you not try harder to make me remember?"

Snape looks taken back, an odd expression for him, Harry thinks. It seems like it takes the older man a long moment before he can gather his thoughts to even make a response. Harry waits patiently, feeling like that is the one thing he can give--patience--and nothing else.

"Because," Snape begins harshly, "you're not the same. You're not him."

Harry feels jolted. His friends, everyone he knows and cares about, says that he is basically the same, and yet the one person that should know him best says he is not. "How then?" he asks. "How am I different?"

"Make no mistake," Snape retorts, "you are the same Harry Potter whom they love, but you are not the Harry whom I love. But as I've already said, only a few moments before, you must realize that even should you remember--there was no guarantee you would be the Harry I fell for. Do you understand? The circumstances that created the person I could love will never happen again, remembering memories are not the same as living through experiences. If that was the case then Albus would be tainted by--" Snape abruptly shuts his mouth and his left eyes twitches. "You are," he begins again after clearing his throat, "unlikely to be the same, and despite my protestations you did seem happy in the Muggle life you were in."

"But don't you think I would have liked to know the truth?" Harry whispers. "Don't think I deserved to know it?"

"You were unhappy before, Potter," Snape states, his eyes hooded and his face guarded all of a sudden. Harry feels him retreating and doesn't understand why, especially not when everything is finally out in the open. What is going on? "Very depressed and probably on the verge of being suicidal," Snape remarks tonelessly, "and now... now you are happy, well adjusted, and living a life you have always wanted--without the dreaded fame and madman trying to kill you. This is what you wanted, and they gave it to you."

"Don't call me Potter," Harry snaps and grabs Snape's shirt, pulling him closer. He tries, tries hard to reach Snape--reach the man that was reaching out to him. "Was I unhappy with you?"

"You were dysfunctional with me."

Harry pulls him even closer and hisses in his ear, "Answer the question, Snape."

"Love is not a happy thing," Snape quotes. "It's what you use to say."

"Did I love you?" Harry asks, his eyes fierce and fiery.

Snape purses his lips. "You said you did... once."

"Did you love me?"

His left eye twitches again. "Have I not already said so?"

"Do you still love me?"

His body tenses immediately. "You're different."

"And?"

"And despite that," he snarls, "I still want you."

"But you don't love me," Harry finishes, releasing his hold on Snape. "Not anymore."

"I don't know you anymore."

Harry inclines his head in agreement, thinking why is he even saying these things--he doesn't even like Snape much, though he might trust the man. Why did he ask all these questions? What had he hoped to gain from the answers? A justification, a reason for the betrayal? If Snape had really loved him, still loves him, would he have just given up on Harry as he seemed to? And was he--Harry--really that different?

"I don't even know who I am anymore."

TBC