Rating:: PG-13
House:: The Dark Arts
Characters:: Harry Potter Severus Snape
Genres:: General Drama
Era:: Multiple Eras
Stats:: Published: 01/31/2004

Updated: 07/22/2005

Words: 484,149

Chapters: 73

Hits: 73,081

Resonance

Salamander

Story Summary:: Snape adopts Harry in this story that stretches from the end of year six until Harry starts his Auror apprenticeship. Harry defeats Voldemort and has to deal with not only with his now greatly increased fame, but also with some odd, disturbing skills he inherited from the Dark Lord. Both he and Snape fumble around trying for some kind of family normalcy, which neither one is very knowledgeable of. Harry survives his seventh year at Hogwarts with a parent as a teacher and starts his training as an Auror.

Chapter 09

Chapter Summary:: Harry waves goodbye to his friends leaving on the train at the end of the year since he is being kept at the castle to protect him from the seven remaining Death Eaters. He isn’t feeling very sanguine about his situation, however. Eavesdropping on a conversation between Snape and McGonagall leaves him confused about who he can rely on.

Posted:: 03/23/2004

Hits:: 1,221

Chapter 9 - The End of Year Six

Harry was released from Pomfrey's clutches at breakfast time. He had to rush back to his dormitory for a clean set of robes. By the time he'd changed, the corridors were nearly empty. He came up behind Dennis, hoisting open the door to the Great Hall with some effort. Harry helped from behind and gave the younger Creevey brother a smile. Dennis nearly fell over when he saw who was behind him. He stepped aside with his mouth open and watched Harry pass. "Dennis?" Harry asked the boy. The whole large room quieted and everyone, it seemed, turned to watch him come in. Harry only now realized his mistake--by being late, he'd made an entrance.

The expressions of his fellow students had shifted to quiet awe or even fear from the ecstatically impressed they had been before. Shaking his head, Harry stepped along the table to where his friends were and sat down.

"Good to see you, Harry," Ginny said.

Plates of food appeared. The hall was a long time returning to a normal level of conversation.

* * *

Harry took himself away from his friends after breakfast to write his letter. He'd planned on mailing it, but owl post would make more of an impression and it would arrive in time, since the train left tomorrow morning. He pulled out parchment and quill and began.

Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia,
I am writing to inform you that I won't be returning for summer holiday. I have destroyed Voldemort so I am no longer required to seek refuge with you for protection.

He grinned at that opening. It was succinct, just the way his uncle liked it.

I don't expect to be needing anything from you in the future. I probably should thank you for the shelter and meals, although I find it hard to do that. Mum would have been disappointed, I'm sure, if she knew how low you managed to keep a bare minimum of care.

He reread the last sentence. It was as tactful as he could be while still saying what he absolutely had to--it would kill him to not say anything. He burned with an undeniable desire to put them in his past and that required getting beyond these statements.

Remember me to everyone, especially Aunt Marge.

Harry grinned maliciously at that and signed it.

* * *

The leaving feast was a loud affair. Harry declined sitting at the head table when Dumbledore offered it. He much preferred to sit with his friends before they departed on the morning train without him. The students still seemed more reverent around him. Harry didn't believe Dementors were worse than Voldemort, but everyone else definitely thought so.

Dumbledore stood up and clinked his glass for attention. "Good evening to everyone. It is time to wrap up another school year. I don't think we've had a more interesting one since our Founders passed on. First off, after much complaining by the students, we have decided to award the cup based on merit points alone, so we are celebrating Ravenclaw's first house cup in over fifteen years." He waved his wand and blue banners bearing an eagle unfurled from the ceiling across the Hall. The Ravenclaw table erupted into cheers and much back beating.

Ron leaned over and said in a cheated voice, "What, he didn't give Gryffindor a thousand points for destroying Voldemort?"

"Everyone helped with that, Ron," Harry said offhandedly.

"We also have . . . " Dumbledore went on as he picked up a looped ribbon with a medal attached and glanced at it briefly. "Not one . . ." He lifted another identical medal and draped both over his gnarled hand. ". . . but two awards for special service to the school for . . ." He pretended to read the name off the medal. ". . . one Harry Potter."

Even louder cheering broke out, startling Harry. Ron and Hermione pushed him out of his seat and gave him a shove toward the front of the hall. Students reached out to slap his arms as he walked up. He mounted the platform beside the headmaster and stared at the edging on the old wizard's bright blue robes as the cheering continued. Out of the side of his eye, he could see the teachers behind the table all standing and clapping as well.

Dumbledore draped each medal over him. They felt heavy as they bumped his breastbone. Harry held one up to look closer. It had his name inscribed in a flourishing script. "Thank you, sir," Harry said as he finally met the headmaster’s gaze and accepted the offered handshake.

"You deserve much more, Harry," Dumbledore said. He patted Harry on the shoulder and gave him a nudge in the direction of his seat. "Unless you have something to say?"

"No, sir," he replied quickly. As he walked back to his seat, the Gryffindor table remained standing until Harry sat down. "All right. That will get annoying if it continues," he commented loudly.

"One for the Dementors, I take it," Ron said with his mouth full, as he eyed Harry's medals.

Harry slipped them off. Hands reached out to look at them. He handed them away without care and served himself mashed potatoes. Had he been looking at the staff table at that moment, he might have seen Professor McGonagall elbow Professor Snape.

* * *

The next morning, Harry waved the train away from Hogsmeade station. It felt very strange to do so. As the train rounded the bend and disappeared, except for the plume of steam blooming over the trees, Harry headed back up to the castle with Hagrid.

As they rounded the lake with Hagrid taking extremely slow steps in deference to Harry, the half-giant said, "I have to go inta Diagon Alley for some things. I asked Dumbledore if'n I can take ya' along. But he said 'no.'"

"Thanks for asking, though," Harry said.

Hagrid put a hand on Harry's shoulder as they walked. "You amazed everyone this time. You really did."

"Why? Voldemort was much worse. Why is everyone so impressed by the Dementors? I don't get it."

"I think it was a matter of bein’ on top o’ He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named that is gettin’ to people. They don't know what to expect next. Everyone knew you could do in the other bloke--you'd done it before. No one saw this one comin'."

Harry hung around with Hagrid for a while as he resewed his massive boot, watered the pumpkin patch, and mixed meat scraps with chicken blood for the Thestrals then set the buckets of it in the sun to warm.

Hagrid wiped his bloody hands on his thick leather apron before pulling it off. "Well, Harry, gotta run. It's lunchtime anyway--you best be gettin' on to the castle."

Harry studiously avoided glancing at the dark buckets again as he departed. The lawn was teaming with crickets as he walked and the sun was even warmer today than it had been all school year. That seemed promising.

The Great Hall was alight inside from the tall windows. A few owls were just flying back out the upper open panes as Harry made his way to the end of the Hufflepuff table where the staff were seated. A place seemed to have been saved for him at the end, beside Dumbledore and across from McGonagall. With casual hellos all around, Harry slid onto the bench. Everyone was already eating, so he served himself a small chicken pie and ignored the salad and pea soup. The filling of the pie was hot, so he nibbled along the crust before dropping it back onto his plate to cool.

"Are you going to find things to occupy yourself without your friends here?" McGonagall asked.

"I expect so, ma’am," Harry replied flatly. He wasn't feeling too congenial about her still. A subtle shifting happened around the table as though everyone sensed his mood. Harry realized that, while the subtle went completely unregarded by his friends, the teachers were acutely aware of it.

McGonagall eyed him, then went back to eating her soup. Snape leaned forward from two seats down and asked airily, "Nightmares all over, Potter?"

Harry paused in cutting into the hard crust of his pie with the edge of his fork. Last night hadn't been dream-free by any means. The same hazy world with a few slithering shadows had woken him twice despite whatever potion Pomfrey had forced on him, but no web and no wind. "Not exactly," he said thoughtfully.

Groans, sighs and one dropped fork accompanied this revelation. "Should I simply have said 'yes'?" Harry asked the headmaster.

"Not if isn't true," Dumbledore replied as he gave his staff a disapproving once-over.

"You have something else for us, Potter?" McGonagall asked with more than a hint of chastisement.

"I don't know, ma'am," Harry replied quietly. He took a bite of his pie despite not feeling very hungry anymore. After finishing half, he really wasn't hungry. He stood up. "May I go, sir?" Harry asked the headmaster.

"Of course, Harry."

He walked quickly out of the Hall even though he had no place to be. His footsteps echoed much more than usual. On automatic, he started up the grand staircase and headed for the Gryffindor tower. In the middle of the corridor, he changed his mind. He had an inkling that McGonagall was going to come looking for him, at least part of him hoped she would, even though he didn't feel like talking to her. He ran through the list of likely places she would look next, like the library and courtyard. Turning around, he headed for the staircase to the dungeon.

The dungeon corridors were very quiet and cool, even on such a warm day. Harry wandered all the way to the end, past the classroom and the entrance to the Slytherin common room. He had never come down this far. Around the corner were more doors that had no labels so he assumed they were storage. A tall dusty glass trophy case sat at the turn in the corridor. On the top shelf was a large mahogany plaque with small gold fixtures for every year Slytherin had won the house cup. This was a Slytherin-only duplicate of one in the trophy room that Harry himself had been forced to polish during various detentions.

Harry bent over to peer at the other awards on the lower shelves. There was a medal from 1423 to one Mathias Priorton from a town in Hungary for removal of a plague of fire locusts. Harry thought the Slytherins were stretching it a bit if that was the best they could scrounge up. Beside that was a row of trophies for best in show at a biannual 1600s Quidditch festival. Harry wondered if they still held it--that sounded like fun. On the end, partially behind the base of the last trophy, was a medal for special services to the school. The name, inscribed in staid block lettering, was Tom Riddle.

"Goes to show," Harry muttered to himself. As he crouched to study the very bottom shelf, footsteps sounded in the preceding corridor. Harry held still as he heard a door open and the footsteps fade. The door didn't close. He assumed it was Snape going into his office. If he didn't close his door, Harry might have to sneak past with a disillusionment spell when he wanted to leave.

The bottom shelf held two short silver staffs with large gems on top. They didn't appear to have any labels. More footsteps approached and stopped.

"Have you seen Potter?" Harry heard McGonagall say. He held his breath to listen better.

"No," was the reply just audible from inside Snape's office.

"If you see him-"

"In the extremely unlikely event of him showing up in my office, I will certainly do so," Snape said blandly. He sounded unhappy at being interrupted. Harry's lips quirked at the thought of showing up right after McGonagall left.

"Apparently, he has a bee in his bonnet about something," McGonagall commented in an annoyed tone.

"That is . . . phenomenally caustic," Snape said, making Harry's brow furrow until he heard the dull thunk of a bottle being put back down. He grinned a bit more at hearing McGonagall getting the same treatment from the Potions master as any student.

"I've looked everywhere likely," McGonagall said, half to herself.

"I doubt he has left the castle. He seems to have learned something akin to obedience in the last few months."

Harry growled at that and tried to think of ways to prove that wrong in the coming days.

"Albus seems to think it critical that I speak with him," she sighed, sounding like she had other things to do. Harry frowned, feeling stung yet again.

"It is unusual for you to have a problem with Mr. Potter," Snape observed.

Her feet paced the length of the room and her voice was harder to hear. "I think he is angry that I turned him away the night before the match. Wanted me to come down here to get a potion from you." She said this as though it were very difficult to believe.

"He did come down," Snape commented. "He didn't tell you why he needed it?"

"Said he was having a nightmare," she said dismissively.

"Yes," Snape said in an oddly mild tone. "I believe that was the one where he dreamed he was trapped in a web of the Dementors' minds."

In a defensive tone, she said, "How was I to know he was dreaming about that? Wait . . . he told you?"

"I asked. And I feel compelled to point out that his dreams are usually significant. I was reading Diagenes' Treatise on Visions and Other Disturbances of the Conscious when Potter knocked. I was trying to find a reference to web-like visions." Harry blinked at that, remembering the large grimoire.

McGonagall countered, "What was I supposed to do? Usher him into my office and give him a cup of cocoa? Pat him on the head and insist it will be all right?"

Harry, tired of crouching, stood up and stared unseeing at the house cup plaque. McGonagall ranted on. It sounded as though she was pacing in shorter laps. "Just as well the boy doesn't have parents--the things that happen to him . . . the worry alone would kill anyone. He faced down Voldemort for Merlin's sake. He doesn't need to be coddled. I assumed if I asked him his dream, he wouldn't tell me anyway."

Snape spoke then. "His dream would not have been significant to you, since I am quite certain he didn't tell anyone but myself about his vision. I was rather surprised to find that no one had spoken to him at all, not even his Head of House." There was silence for a long moment before Snape continued in a slightly harder tone. "Minerva, he attacked the Dark Lord, with his mind. I cannot conceive of it. That is akin to bathing in maggot-infested rotting flesh."

Harry straightened in surprise then thought, It wasn't that bad.

Snape was still going. "After this, the boy mopes around the castle, clearly hurting, and when I pull him into my office because he is having a vision in the middle of my class, I find that no one has spoken to him about the battle, let alone his visions." Harry held his breath again, his emotions confused.

With a hint of accusation, McGonagall asked, "Did you?"

"It isn't my place. As well, it isn't even slightly inside the realm of my abilities."

McGonagall sighed. "I guess Albus should have done it. He mistakenly believes Harry needs more space to work things out on his own, and I don't think that's true. Maybe it was never true. He persists in his belief that, if the boy has a problem, he will come to him."

Yeah, if I knew the password, Harry thought.

McGonagall sighed. "I just thought it ridiculous he couldn't come down and retrieve his own potion." She paused. Footsteps scuffed across the floor. Harry envisioned her confronting Snape. "You are one to talk about how he should be treated. You are the one who has made certain the boy cannot stand the sight of you."

Harry strained to hear Snape's response, but nothing was forthcoming. His shoulders drooped in disappointment.

"Well, if you do see him," McGonagall repeated in frustration as footsteps sounded in the hallway now.

Harry waited what seemed like a long time, but was probably only ten minutes, before he ventured back around the corner and peered in Snape's doorway. His teacher sat at his desk, one finger pressed against his forehead as he sorted through a stack of parchments. He showed no reaction as he glanced up at the doorway. "Potter," he said flatly in a sort of greeting.

"Sir," Harry said, thinking quickly of a topic. "You shouldn't have exams to grade," he said in reference to the parchments.

"No. One advantage of the headmaster's rather generous edict." He picked up the top sheet and squinted at the heading. "I have been sent the O.W.L. and N.E.W.T. Potions essays from Durmstrang. Seems they lost the three wizards qualified to grade them in a battle with some of the Dark Lord's supporters."

"Oh," Harry said. He had already started to forget about that for hours or even a day at a time.

"Professor McGonagall is looking for you, by the way."

"Oh?" Harry said again, this time in forced surprise. He glanced around the room. "Guess I should go see her," he said a little reluctantly.

Snape was leaning over the parchments, which made his hair fall over his eyes. He looked up at Harry through it. "Still having nightmares?"

Harry shrugged.

"Meaningful?"

"Don't know, sir."

Snape dipped his quill and made a notation on the top parchment. "Let me know if you need more potion."

"I will, sir," Harry said, his emotions confusing him more. He stepped to the doorway. "I'm dismissed, sir?"

"You came in voluntarily, as I recall," Snape pointed out evenly.

"Right. See you at dinner, Professor."

Harry wandered slowly up to McGonagall's office. Her door was open as well. He wondered if that were always true when the students weren't around. Maybe it was just to get a better breeze from the window. Knocking on the doorframe brought her head up from the filing drawer she had been bent over.

"Mr. Potter, come in."

"I was told you wanted to see me." Harry hoped she had told more teachers than Snape.

"Yes." She put the folder she'd pulled on top of the cabinet. "Close the door and have a seat." As Harry obeyed, she sat at her desk and clasped her hands before her. She looked more tired than he had noticed at lunch, making him feel kind of bad. He should've just answered her in an ordinary tone, and none of this would have happened. She said, "I apologize for my comment at lunch. You certainly would prefer, I know, to be free of disturbing dreams. And should you need us, we will most certainly be here for you."

Harry looked down at his hands. He felt a strange tug of war between wanting to not need them at all and wishing they'd pay him a little more heed.

She went on. "The other night, had I known you were dreaming of real Dementors, I would have . . . well, I don't know what we would have done for you. But something . . . we always seem to come up with something. I certainly wouldn't have sent you off so harshly." Her shoulders fell as she finished. When he didn't respond, she prompted, "Harry?"

"Ma'am?"

She waited, then said, "And you are still having nightmares?"

"Yes," Harry replied softly.

"Do you want to tell me what is in them?"

Harry deciding that she might as well know, plunged in and said, "I'm wandering through this green haze and these shadows are--I don't know if following me is quite right. Hunting me, maybe. They were there before when I was seeing the Dementors' web, but that is gone now and this isn't." She didn't have a response. Harry added, "With Professor Snape's potion, the dreams don't wake me as much, so they don't really matter."

"I suspect they still matter," she said, then added in a strained voice, "But I don't know how they matter."

Harry realized at that moment that much of his teachers' attitude toward him was borne of helplessness. They didn't want to deal with him because they didn't know what to do, not because he was an annoyance they'd rather be free of. That made him feel a little better. He leaned forward in his chair and propped his hands on the armrests. "I'll let you know if they change or if they start to make some kind of sense," he said, hoping it would get him away.

"You do that, Harry," she said gently. She looked around herself, then reached for the file on the cabinet and opened it up. "You may go," she said when she realized he was waiting for a dismissal. She too didn't seem to think he needed to stick to protocol.

Now that he didn't need to avoid McGonagall, he headed to the tower. The common room was quiet, the grate dark. It was going to get very boring and lonely here, he realized. At least at the Dursleys he had tormentors for company. He went up to his dormitory. All of the beds but his own had been stripped of bedding and only his trunk remained. The sight was a little daunting. Over holiday break when he was here, his roommates' things still remained.

Deciding to write his friends, he pulled out a quill and a stack of parchments. Writing careful letters to every one of his friends required nearly all of the time until dinner.

He headed to the owlery. where the school owls were settled in large numbers since they were unneeded. Harry gave Hedwig Hermione's letter and coaxed eight other school owls down for the others. As the birds flew off, Harry hoped his friends didn't think it pathetic that he had nothing better to do than write them the same day they'd left school. His next thought was, he hoped they all weren't so busy with summer family things that they didn't have time to write back. Harry sighed as he stared at the shafts of evening light coming into the dusty air of the owlery. He wished he had summer family things to be doing. Wished it a lot.

As he walked slowly back to the tower, he regretted not keeping Hedwig for company. He could have put her cage in his dormitory without bothering anyone.

Harry lay on his bed, staring at the inside of the canopy until the clock read six for dinner. He didn't really feel like sitting with the teachers again, but he was hungry and there wasn't anything else to do. If he didn't show up, he worried what they would think. Maybe they wouldn't notice since it wasn't subtle enough.

Rubbing grit from his eyes, he stood up. After stopping in the boy’s toilet to wash up and comb his hair down, he headed for the Great Hall. The teachers were arranged almost identically as they had been before, except Tonks occupied the seat he'd had earlier. He greeted the Auror warmly and received a tight hug in return. "So good to see you, Harry." She returned to her seat and her conversation with Dumbledore. Harry wandered down to the end across from Hagrid and Filch and beside Trelawney.

Harry ate quickly, stopping only to answer Hagrid's attempts at conversation. As he stood to leave, Dumbledore said, "There is pudding, Harry."

Harry took this as a strong request to stay, since there always pudding. He sat back down, flushing under the attention he'd gathered with his attempted early departure.

"I hear you are having prophetic dreams, my dear boy," Trelawney said quietly. "You certainly haven't shown much promise in class, but the Sight can manifest at any time."

"They haven't been about the future, ma'am, just the present."

"Ah," she said, as though that diminished his dreams considerably.

Harry had to stop himself from tapping his fingers on the table. The problem with staying for pudding was that he had to stay through everyone else finishing dinner.

"Hope yer stayin' out o' trouble," Filch said, pointing his knife at Harry--not an ordinary butter one, but a very sharp, folding, bone-handled one he kept in his pocket and was using to cut his meat.

"Yes, sir," Harry said, feeling a little beaten down by being here.

"Ah, you'll settle in all righ', Harry," Hagrid said. Harry, never one to let Hagrid down, nodded that he agreed, even though he didn't. He couldn't get visions of all the other students, home with their parents, planning trips, playing sports, visiting friends, out of his head. His chest felt tight if he let himself dwell on it for long.

"At least I'm allowed to consider it home now," Harry commented to himself. A few eyes shifted over to him at that--Snape's dwelled on him a little longer than the others.

Author notes: Next: Chapter 10 - The Request