Harry Potter and the Curse of Ages

Chapter 5 Facing Memories

Upon hearing Professor Snape's regrets at not spending more time as a student with Harry's mother, a notion occurred to Harry that knotted his stomach with revulsion.

"Did you ... love her?"

"No!" Snape snapped viciously.

McGonagall smiled. "As you can tell from the vehemence of his response, the answer is yes, Harry."

Snape glared like an angry, cornered beast, and then put down his emotions. "I'm not sure. I felt strongly for her, but I hated myself for such feelings toward a ... mu-muggleborn. I think anyone who had a chance to know her could have loved her - if he could allow himself to. I could never have brought ... one of that kind home. We purebloods are not supposed to mix with that kind, so I had always been taught: perhaps to dally with, but never for any sort of commitment. Truth be told, I don't think most purebloods are allowed the luxury of affection for anything but their genealogies. Now, by the end of my fifth year, I was thinking quite longingly of spending time with her, but then there was that unfortunate incident involving Potter in which I snapped at Lily when she tried to help."

Harry felt very warm around the collar at knowing precisely the scene Snape meant.

"Of course, it was just the heat of the moment, brought on by my anger with Potter, but the damage was done. I was not accustomed to apologizing to anyone, but after I cooled down, I was ready to do so to Lily, if I could only find an opportunity to speak privately to her. I thought I might get that chance at the last quidditch match, but Potter got himself badly injured, and she had to use her life-saving magic to keep him alive. From then on they became closer and closer, and I never again had a chance to speak with her like we had in earlier years."

"Is that why you have such an intense hate for my father?"

"I'm sure I would have animosity for him anyway, as I do for Black and Lupin and Pettigrew, but your father stole her away. Oh, no trickery or force, I am not accusing. But if you are ever fortunate enough to meet a woman like that, Potter, but she goes to someone else, you will know how deep bitterness can run. And then he led her into defiance of the Dark Lord, and that was too much for me. A sparkling gem such as that should be guarded, not placed in harms' way. So I joined the Death Eaters, hoping that I would be the one to be able to kill Potter. Alas, my skills were more needed as a potion brewer and I did not have my chance. Then there was word of a Prophecy, which the Dark Lord only had part of, and he looked for the birth of sons among his enemies. When you and Longbottom were born, he determined to kill both families. I tried ever so carefully to present reasons not to kill Lily, but he would take no chances. When Pettigrew turned on your parents and I knew what would happen to her, I could remain no longer. I came to Dumbledore, pledged my loyalty and told him all I knew. I let him look into my mind with no use of Occlumency and he could see that I could not support someone who could bring harm to Lily. That is why he knew he could trust me. From that day I was the Dark Lord's most implacable enemy. Dumbledore tried to prevent the attack at Godrics' Hollow but he was too late."

"It all makes sense now," said Harry, "except ... wait, now I understand something else. The memory you put in the pensieve - and I am very sorry I invaded that, I truly am - at first I thought you hid that because of how you had been embarrassed, but that wasn't it: you had other embarrassments, a few of which I saw. And then I thought it was because you were hiding how my father had gotten the best of you - but there were other times for that as well: you didn't hide those. I asked you this before but now I know - you were hiding how you had reacted to my mother, weren't you?"

Snape closed his eyes sadly and nodded. "I was still very conflicted over her being muggleborn. I was also angry with that whole Gryffindor gang of bullies, and more than a little anxious from the OWLs. When your mother stepped in to protect me, to save me, it was more than I could handle and I called her ... that word. I couldn't stand being protected either by a woman or especially by a muggleborn, particularly as it was so public. Reacting as I did was ... rash, nay reprehensible. I hated myself immediately for it, not least of all because in the years to come I felt I had pushed her toward Potter."

"I can understand that, Professor," said Harry sympathetically. "In the rush of events, it's very easy to say regrettable things and take regrettable actions. I know I have done so and been hurt by others doing so. Do you still have trouble with muggleborns?"

"I try to look at people for their talents, but it can be very difficult to root out a lifetime's training. I was taught that muggles are the lowest form of filth, and the closer one is to muggles, the filthier one is. On the other hand, my natural father was a muggle, as my older cousins never tired of reminding me: he left my mother when I was a few months old, soon after he was introduced to my mother's side of the family."

"How did they treat him?"

"I wouldn't know, Potter, but I believe my family to always be courteous."

"Just as you have always been?" asked Harry pointedly. "An awful lot of cruelty can be dressed up in courtesy. How would they have reacted if you had brought home a muggle wife, or even a muggleborn?"

"Hmm. Well, of course, that was one of the considerations that kept me from admitting my feelings for Lily."

"Severus," said Professor McGonagall, "perhaps your father left because of how he was treated, perhaps even threatened, and then your mother's family used his fleeing as proof to her of the wisdom of rejecting muggles."

"But to flee in the face of threats, that's cowardly," he objected.

"And what sort of defense could he put up against a family of dark wizards?" asked Professor McGonagall gently. "For that matter, they might have wiped his memory of any recollection of her and you and sent him on his way. He may not have fled, but just gone about his life oblivious to what he had lost. Would doing that to your muggle father have been out of character for your mother's family?"

"As much as I would like to deny it, I cannot."

Harry nodded sympathetically. "Sirius has told me of being taught to think like that. So when I showed up here at Hogwarts with James's appearance, a muggleborn mother's eyes, and a thoroughly muggle upbringing, I must have seemed about as low as could be."

Snape's mouth twitched and then he said, "Certainly, and your great fame and adulation over something which not only did you not put any effort into but which also seemed to have been dependent on Lily's death just added to the cause for contempt."

"I understand that, Professor. You may not believe this, but I often tried to avoid all that 'Boy Who Lived' notoriety. It felt wrong to take credit for something I had no conscious part of. Even recently, I was uncomfortable with the attention put on me, but at least I could accept it was based on things in which I had taken an active role. Mostly the war was fought by others, but I had a hand in preparing them, so I was made the focal point."

"Harry Potter!" snapped Professor McGonagall. "You have gone beyond healthy modesty with that! The training you gave all your students was stellar and you took the hardest tasks yourself, even after bearing horrible stress over our strategy. You will not hide from your great accomplishments around me!"

"If I were around you only, I would have felt more comfortable doing so. I know what I have done, but I also know that every bit of it required all of those on our side. I could not have faced that army alone, others took that. I could not have continued to heal or survived the killing curse again without sharing the strength of my friends. I may have been central, but the victory is ours, not mine."

Snape peered at Harry through narrowed eyes. "I still can't say I'm fond of you, but I'll admit you've become a passable wizard."

Harry suppressed a smile - a passable wizard, indeed. Still, it was as high a compliment as he had ever heard from Snape, or was likely to.

"Well, then, now that we've cleared the air on a few things, shall we eat?" invited Professor McGonagall.

The dinner with Snape and McGonagall went relatively briskly. Despite a large number of issues having been aired, neither Harry nor Snape exactly warmed to each other. Harry brought up the subject of releasing the souls from the petrified dementors and Snape indicated that he had been in touch with Hagrid and the centaurs about locating all of the dementors in the Forbidden Forest.

"That's good," said Harry. "Is the location of Voldemort's island something you knew from years gone by, or will you need me to lead you there?"

"I'm afraid we will be taking a long broom ride together, Potter."

Harry stifled a laugh. "I hope you mean on separate brooms."

Snape's eyes widened in offense at the notion. McGonagall intervened: "It was just a joke, Severus. Harry, do you have any notion when you will be available for that."

"I believe the Headmaster said something about most of my time being scheduled this week, but I can check with him about next week."

"We should have finished with the dementors in the forest by then."

"We?"

"Yes, Harry," said Professor McGonagall. "As you can imagine the killing curse requires a rather negative emotional focus, even when being performed for a healthy purpose. I am accompanying Severus so that he has a fond friend with him to help bring him out of that negative bent of mind."

"I see. That's excellent. I know I needed people near me when I healed to draw strength from and to get away from the lingering sense of pain."

"Oh, must you relate everything to your own experiences," sneered Snape.

"Now, Severus, that's what is known as empathy," said McGonagall gently. "So the answer is yes, he must: that's how he understands others' situations. It's very much a part of being Lily's boy."

Snape sighed and shook his head. "Must you remind me?"

To move the conversation in a different direction, Harry said, "I take it then I should coordinate the trip to the island with you as well, Minerva."

She smiled. "See, Harry, it's not so hard to use my name. Yes, I believe I should go. Severus might be lifted from the negative focus by gazing into your eyes and thinking of your mother, but I am afraid both of you would find that - how shall I say it? - disquieting."

Harry laughed as Snape scowled darkly over the jest.

"Minerva, I liked you better when you displayed no sense of humor," Snape grumbled.

"I can only apologize, Severus. I display different parts of myself around different people - oops, that sounds naughty," Professor McGonagall added with a giggle. "I mean that being around different people brings out different characteristics. Now that we are at peace, and I don't have to be his teacher, Harry happens to bring out the playful schoolgirl in me. Hagrid has the same effect."

"Revolting!"

Harry snorted. "Just as Neville's boggart brought out the schoolgirl in him."

Harry and McGonagall exploded into laughter, while Snape shook his head and scowled.

Later that evening, Harry found Sirius waiting in the office.

"Well, what did you think?"

"Very interesting. She slipped him a potion, you know."

"Really, but she said she wasn't using one."

"No, she said she wasn't giving you one."

"Veritaserum?"

"No, he would have detected that before he even sipped the liqueur. It was something much more subtle and hard to detect, just to ease his tightness, but I couldn't tell which one. I don't think he would have accepted food or drink from anyone else without testing it. I think she just wanted him to open up and let out some of the secrets he stores up."

"He seems to need it."

"He's right about Lily, though. She was everything he said. I hadn't known how much she had tried to help him. Of course, I ignored her as I did all muggleborns as much as I could until James's accident. It must have been particularly hard for Severus to accept attention from a muggleborn. I know I was pretty poor about it when Prongs first showed interest in her - not jealousy, but contempt."

"Some habits run deep, don't they?"

"Aye. You're lucky, Harry, to have been brought up as you were. You could see muggle as the norm and wizardry as something special. It was a gift and very precious to you, even though you were born with it. You value it for what you have and can accomplish, not as a substitute for accomplishment."

"I think I know what you mean. Having these powers doesn't define me. I'm a person separate from being a wizard."

"That's it. That's one of the things Lily helped James and me to see. Purebloods particularly tend to worship magic and in so doing to think of themselves as gods, or if you prefer, to see muggles as essentially animals. To see that we are people first, who happen to have this particular attribute, but not essentially any different from muggles, is hard."

"Muggles do the same thing, you know. If a person is uniquely talented, by being physically strong, or pretty, or smart, or in some other way talented, he or she gets treated ever so special, and can often come to think that he is special and superior to the 'common' run of mankind because of having that one quality superlatively. The talents are good, but we need to recognize that we are first and foremost human, all too human."

"I think Moony always understood that, because he had to deal with being a werewolf - a part of him, and yet separate."

"Perhaps our personal curses, not the magical kind necessarily, are often blessings. My harsh upbringing with the Dursleys made sure I never thought of myself as something special. Quite the contrary."

"To some extent, maybe, but people react differently. Many people would have been ruined by the upbringing you had. You can choose to deal with your burdens, or even your advantages, constructively, or you can just quit, failing to grow from what you are."

"Yeah. Plenty of people have started with everything and done nothing, and vice versa. Well, I think I'd better turn in. I've missed my morning run for several days now, so I'd better rest up so I can get back to good habits."

"Splendid idea. Good night, Harry."

"Good night, Sirius."

At breakfast the next morning, Professor Dumbledore presented Harry a fairly detailed schedule. He was given four days with Madame Pomfrey and Madame Hooch to learn and practice all the unsplinching, uncrunkling, memory modification, and spell reversing charms he had not already mastered.

"Memory modification, Professor?"

"Practice saying 'Albus' - it won't hurt you, you know," Dumbledore gently reminded Harry. "Yes, it is not unusual for student apparators to have accidents that bring part or all of the student to the attention of muggles. Of course, the sudden appearance is generally quite unexplainable, although in a remarkable number of instances, the muggles are entirely too wrapped up in their own lives to even notice the unattached torso of a teenager down the block. An instructor needs to be able to locate errant students, or parts thereof, retrieve them, and very gently smooth over the memories of any muggles who happened to have noticed."

Harry searched in the trove of memories and skills he had acquired from Voldemort. He found numerous ways to breach the protections wizards might place on the secrets in their own minds, but these included none of the skills needed to gently erase inconvenient memories without damaging the subject. "Well that makes sense, and I have a notion about how magic can interact with memories, although it will be good to learn less damaging means."

"Yes, what practitioners of dark magic consider subtlety is rather about getting the most effect out of their efforts, usually heedless of the damage done to their subjects. A good wizard who must for some reason affect another should seek the subtlety of doing so with minimal harm."

"I wonder if my healing power will allow me to modify memories particularly gently."

Dumbledore grinned proudly. "It is excellent that you care enough to think about that, Harry. What a lovely connection to draw. Both involve reaching inside the minds of others, so it is very possible that the inevitable damage done by memory charms can be healed as you go. That will be a matter for you to explore, since healing is your unique gift, but please keep me informed of your results as you work on it."

"I'm on my own in that regard?"

"You are the Apparation Instructor, not I. It is your responsibility to see that the job is done well. My only interests in the matter are a general interest in well-performed magic and a specific interest in your progress as a wizard. Now please take a gander at that schedule."