CHAPTER 1 - By a Route Obscure and Lonely

 

Against everybody's advice, Harry had decided to spend the last month of his holidays at number 12, Grimmauld Place. He was still very shaken by Sirius's death and wanted to be alone. Having inherited the place, he had decided to face its spookiness and take possession of his estate.

Kreacher wasn't there anymore. Kingsley had cast a Memory Charm on him and he had been sent to a shelter for house-elves. Buckbeak had been clandestinely sent to Romania, where he would live under Charlie's care. Harry had given permission to the Order to continue to use the house as headquarters, but after Sirius's death the house remained almost always empty.

Aside the absence of Sirius, Kreacher and Buckbeak, nothing had changed in that house at Grimmauld Place. The same worn stone steps, the decayed black doors, the darkness. Once again, Harry had felt the rotting smell of the derelict building and heard the characteristic hissing of the gas lamps casting a flickering pale light over the gloomy hallway. He had gone through the entire house, room by room, trying not to make noises that might wake Mrs Black's portrait. He had spent all day cleaning and reorganising the place. At the end of the day, exhausted, he had prepared his supper. All this work had been done the Muggle way, because he still wasn't allowed to perform magic during the summer!

After finishing his supper, he started up the dark staircase, passing the row of shrunken house-elves' heads mounted on plaques on the wall. After reaching the second floor, he crossed the dingy landing, turned the serpent's-head doorknob, and opened the door to his bedroom.

He lay on the twin bed. Sleep was elusive, though. The emptiness in his heart overwhelmed him. Nothing made sense in his life anymore. It was terrible to think that only now that Sirius was dead Harry had understood how much he loved him. While his godfather had been alive, all the worries that surrounded them had prevented Harry from seeing how important Sirius was in his life, how he was a contact point between Harry's remote past with his parents and his present, and also everything that Sirius could have represented to him - someone who could have given him everything he had never had: a family, a home, someone to count on, someone who would always be there for him, in the good and bad times.

He finally fell asleep. But the sombre thoughts slithered into his dreams and kept haunting him. He dreamed of Sirius standing in front of him. Sirius was so beautiful, even pale as he was now, and with his hair lacking the lustre and lushness it had once had. Harry reached out to touch his hair, then his face. Sirius smiled. A soft touch, a faint smile... Then, when Harry tried to embrace him, Sirius disappeared behind the veil. In a gesture of despair, Harry ended up himself crossing to the other side and falling in a vertiginous abyss.

He sat up on the bed, all sweaty. There was no point in trying to sleep again after those nightmares; he had tried it many times before and had failed. It was 4 AM. His throat was dry. He dragged himself to the door, and then started down the stairs, step by step. However much he tried not to make a noise, the floorboards creaked below his feet. When he reached the first landing, he caught sight of a light coming through the kitchen door. He was sure he had turned all the lights off! Then he decided to go back to his bedroom and get his wand. He wouldn't be caught unguarded.

Going down the stairs again, he approached the door cautiously, holding his wand out in front of him, and peered into the kitchen - a cavernous room with rough stone walls. Severus Snape was sitting at the long table, tranquilly sipping his tea - if it was possible to use these two words, "Snape" and "tranquilly", in the same sentence.

"Potter."

"What are you doing here? Who gave you permission?"

"I'm a member of the Order. I have no need of your permission to come here. If you don't want the Order to hold its meetings at your precious haunted mansion..."

"The next Order meeting is only at six o'clock, two hours from now. You have permission to come here only at the meetings. You can't go in and out as you please!"

"This place is the headquarters of a secret organisation, Mr. Potter. We cannot always choose the occasions and circumstances. The headquarters must be permanently available to all the Order members."

"This problem is yours to solve. Dumbledore may trust you, but I don't. You were and will always be a Death Eater. You're guilty of my godfather's death. I'll never forgive you for this. You should be dead, not him!"

Snape's natural paleness was accentuated to a morbid degree. An artery pulsed in his temple, and he got up.

"Potter, we both know very well who is truly responsible for your godfather's death."

Trembling, Harry held his wand with all the force he was capable of.

Snape got his wand out and went on, in his lowest and most menacing tone.
"Notwithstanding, you have no courage to admit your errors and recognise the truth. You prefer to throw the blame on those who don't spend their lives bowing at your feet, fawning upon you. The truth is that you are to be blamed for Black's death. You are a coward, of the worst stripe."

"You..." Harry couldn't speak anymore. The hate he felt for Snape overwhelmed him. Harry lost it completely. "Crucio!"

Snape held up his wand to defend himself, but Harry's curse had no effect at all. A furious gleam reflected in the black eyes. "Crucio!"

Harry contorted himself, kicking and twisting and screaming. The last thing he was aware of before falling was Snape's concerned expression and these words, which didn't seem to make any sense to his mind, "Finite Incantatem!"

~*~*~

The world was spinning round quickly in his head.

"Potter."

"Hm."

"Get up. I'll give you a potion to help you recover."

Snape helped him to get up, holding him by the crook of his arms. Sitting again on the chair, he took the boy on his lap. He produced a flask from within his robe and brought it to Harry's lips. The boy opened them mechanically.

Still on Snape's lap, Harry began to recover consciousness. "What..."

"Soon you'll be well again. Don't worry."

"Do you..."

"Don't speak, don't think. Stay calm. Can you sit by yourself?"

Harry nodded, looking at the older wizard. It was so strange, being on Snape's lap. How could it have happened? Now he remembered the entire scene, but nothing seemed to make sense. Especially the worried expression on Snape's face.

Snape helped him to sit down on the chair perpendicular to the one on which he sat himself. Then he served Harry a cup of tea.

"Drink."

"I don't want to."

The professor opened a cupboard and took a chocolate frog from a cornucopia that was full of sweets - Dumbledore made a point of having an endless supply of sweets in the kitchen of the Order's headquarters. "Drink the tea and eat the chocolate. It will do you good."

Without enthusiasm but resigned, Harry obeyed. A terrible silence followed. Overcome by the effect of Cruciatus, Harry noticed that Snape didn't take his eyes off him, clinically checking him over at every second.

"You're right, I'm an idiot. I can't even cast a bloody Unforgivable."

For a long instant, Snape didn't say a word. Then he sighed. "If you intend to cast a real Cruciatus, you will have to learn the process without Dumbledore's cognisance."

"But who would teach me? Moody? Lupin? They would never betray Dumbledore's trust."

"I can teach you."

"You? But you hate me as much as I hate you!"

"This hate that you profess can be transformed into a powerful weapon. We can use it as a tool in order to accomplish the task with the required celerity."

"What 'required celerity'?"

"Before the beginning of the term. Surely you don't think that I would be able to teach you the Unforgivables at Hogwarts, do you?"

"Are you serious? Why would you do it?"

"Because I would like to see the Dark Lord defeated?"

"I don't trust you."

"Potter, don't be such a fool! If I intended to kill you, do you think I would have been so incompetent? You think I wouldn't have succeeded in these five years? Five years during which you have been taking the potions I have concocted personally? If my intention was to kill you, that Cruciatus of a minute ago would have been much more painful and prolonged..."

Harry swallowed, dry-mouthed. He remembered all the hate he felt for the professor but, at that moment, he couldn't feel anything besides a strong dizziness. Snape opened the cupboard again and took another chocolate frog.

"Eat some more chocolate, Potter. And do me a favour: don't even think about casting another Unforgivable. First, you must recover your strength."

Harry swallowed the frog in one gulp, and drank all the remaining tea to force it down his throat.

Snape spoke in a calm, velvet tone, "There will be no risk. I would not expose Dumbledore's Golden Boy to danger. I will not duel with you. After all, you are not allowed to do magic during the holidays. I will only teach you to focus your hate. There are very effective techniques in which I'm proficient."

"When and where would you teach me?"

"Why not at this very place? I'm on holiday, as you know. I have to cope with some routine Potions requests, but I still have plenty of free time. I could come here every afternoon."

"I don't like this, but I don't have much choice in the matter. I'll give you a go. But don't try anything funny or I'll..."

"You are not in a position to threaten me, are you, Mr Potter?"

Harry bit his lower lip, trying to control himself.

 

 

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Ptyx, January 2004