Chapter Text
Part 1
Houses burnt beyond repair,
The smell of death is in the air.
A woman weeping in despair says,
He has been here
No Bravery by James Blunt
Up until that Thursday in July, Harry had always thought the sky was blue. But on that Thursday there was no blue to be seen in the sky over Privet Drive. The air was thick with the smell of blood and fear; the sky was streaked with the purple and green light of so many spells, and the sun was hidden behind a pall of black smoke from the charred remains of Privet Drive and its residents. Only one building was left standing in the Muggle street – number four stood alone like the surviving tree in a forest that had just been cut down.
No one had foreseen this: not Trelawney with her shawls and bangles; not Dumbledore and his Order and not even Snape, the supposed spy in Voldemort's camp. No one had guessed that the final confrontation of the second Wizarding War would take place in the middle of a Muggle street, that all the casualties would be Muggles and that there was no one to defend them except an almost-seventeen-year-old wizard who was considered too young to perform magic outside school. It wasn't a battle, it was a massacre. They'd all been killed before Harry even had time to try and prevent it.
No one expected the Death Eaters to attack the Muggles so openly like that, but what did the Death Eaters care about Muggles now? They had Harry Potter in their sights; with all the other houses destroyed, they knew exactly which house Harry was in: the one they couldn't destroy. They still couldn't come in; not with the blood protection Harry's mother had inadvertently gifted him with when she had sacrificed herself for her son.
However, the question still remained how they even knew about Privet Drive in the first place. Harry's address was protected with the Fidelius Charm and should have been as difficult to find as the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix. Harry didn't know who the secret keeper was; Dumbledore had never confided in him, like he hadn't confided a lot of things to Harry over the years. Had Harry's secret keeper betrayed him, like Wormtail had betrayed his parents?
Harry didn't even jump when Professor Snape Apparated into his bedroom. Harry had been locked in for the duration of his holidays, as he usually was in the house in Privet Drive. The man was dressed in Death Eater robes, but he had forgone the mask. Harry wondered if Snape was really working against Voldemort and for the Order or if it was the other way around. Maybe it was neither and Snape was feeding each of them information that only served his own interests. Would Dumbledore have made Snape Harry's secret keeper? Dumbledore trusted the man, he'd said as much to Harry so many times when Harry had been suspicious of Snape's motives.
"It is time, Potter," said Snape and Harry nodded. He'd been getting ready for this final confrontation since the day he was a year old and Voldemort had marked him with a lightning-bolt scar. Harry's hand rubbed it almost unconsciously; it still ached whenever Voldemort got too near him, but he had mastered enough Occlumency to keep the vile creature out of his head. The ache was getting worse the longer Voldemort stayed outside and Harry knew it would get worse still once he was brought before the Dark Lord, but he and Snape had been working on a plan for the past year.
It didn't really matter whether Harry trusted Snape or not, either the plan would work or it wouldn't. One of them would die today and at this point Harry didn't really care who it was. If he killed the Dark Lord, well and good, but if Harry died himself, at least he would finally get to rest and stop having to look over his shoulder for the rest of his life.
He wondered what role Snape had cast him in tonight. Was it as a fellow warrior of the Order of the Phoenix or as a sacrifice to the Dark Lord? It hardly mattered any more; Harry was sick to death of the whole business and he just wanted it over with.
Last year, after Sirius had died Harry had fought tooth and nail to be inducted into the Order, despite being too young. Too many things had been hidden from him and it had taken him quite some time to forgive Dumbledore. Harry felt the things kept from him should have been revealed sooner in order to help him survive and understand what was going on - like why he needed to be stuck at Privet Drive despite what he suffered here. He felt sure if he'd known the reason why he was supposed to learn Occlumency, he would have been better able to do it and not let Snape's barbs get to him.
And he wouldn't have believed a false vision that Sirius was at the Department of Mysteries. And then Harry wouldn't have been responsible for his godfather's death.
At first Dumbledore had been reluctant, saying Harry was much too young. In this he was readily abetted by Molly and Arthur Weasley and Remus Lupin. None of them seemed to understand that Voldemort didn't care what age Harry was; he was still going to try to kill him and Harry would much rather know everything there was to know about how to defend himself than wait like some willing sacrifice lying down on an altar somewhere. Moody, Snape and the other Order members seemed to think that if Harry was old enough for Voldemort to murder, he was old enough to learn how best to defend against such an outcome.
So, on Harry's sixteenth birthday, he had been inducted into the Order of the Phoenix, the youngest member in its history. Harry knew what Snape knew, or at least what the spy revealed to the Order. He was trained in combat by Mad-Eye Moody and Kingsley Shacklebolt, in stealth by Tonks and from Professor Snape he was given gruelling training in Occlumency and Legilimency until both came as naturally to him as breathing.
"Your hair please, Mr. Potter," said Snape as he removed two flasks from his pockets. He handed one of the flasks to Harry along with a strand of greasy black hair, one of his own. Trying not to shudder at the anticipated taste, Harry yanked out a black curl and offered it to his professor. He felt as if the occasion of Voldemort's imminent defeat, or Harry's own, should feel more momentous than this. Instead, Harry felt as if he was back in Potions class and any minute now he was going to lose points from Gryffindor for not preparing properly.
"Now," said Snape and they each dropped a hair into the flasks they were holding at the same time. The grey liquid frothed and bubbled like a sulphuric mud pool and truth to tell, the smell wasn't much better either. "Do you really think this will work, Professor?" queried Harry, staring into the Polyjuice Potion as if he could figure out the secrets of the universe in its murky depths.
"The Dark Lord has regained a body, Potter, but what he has revealed to no one but me is that it is a body that constantly pains him because it was stolen. He stole your blood and his father's remains, and although Wormtail willingly sacrificed his hand it wasn't enough to counter the balance. Every week I take him a potion, he will not drink it from anyone but his trusted Potions master. This will end tonight, Potter, one way or the other."
"How do I know I'm not the one being betrayed? What if this was just a ploy of yours all along to get me to your master?"
"Don't be ridiculous, Potter. You know how the wards in this house work."
"No, actually I don't, as no one has ever seen fit to explain it to me. Just that I had to come back here year after year."
"The headmaster never told you how the blood wards work? Well, basically it means that no one who wishes to harm you can enter this house."
Harry snorted. "That's a laugh."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing, forget it. Let's just get this over with." Harry held his nose as he swallowed the vile potion; he smiled when he saw Snape had to do the same; so it wasn't just him who thought the scent was sickening. The pain as he transformed wasn't as bad as it had been in second year, maybe because he was a bit taller now and Snape wasn't much heavier than Harry; they both looked as if they'd missed too many meals.
They nodded to each other and then Snape Apparated him out and onto the front lawn, where Harry's destiny was waiting in the form of a megalomaniac.
***
"Oh, Harry, tell us again how you did it," insisted Ron as he and Hermione perched on Ron's bed at The Burrow. Now that Voldemort was gone and all the Death Eaters with him, there was no need for Harry to stay at Privet Drive any more He would never have to see the Dursleys ever again. The Order had Obliviated any remaining Muggles who'd survived, including the Dursleys. They didn't even know they'd once had a nephew called Harry Potter.
It suited Harry fine, but he felt bad about all those neighbours who'd been victims of the Death Eaters before he'd finally murdered the snake-faced bastard. After the Order had finished with them, the residents of Little Whinging were convinced that there had been a gas leak and that's why the other houses had collapsed. No one thought to question why number four was still standing; it was just one of those strange things.
"Why didn't Snape die if all the other Death Eaters did?" Ron asked again and Harry tried his best to explain it again.
"When Voldemort branded them with the Dark Mark, they were each given a piece of his life-force; they were all connected to him in some way. If Voldemort died, so would the Death Eaters. It was his way of ensuring that he would never suffer a mutiny or a betrayal."
"But he did, Professor Snape defected to our side," said Hermione.
"Yes, he was quite prepared to die in order to destroy Voldemort. Snape thought he would die until I reminded him about the Polyjuice Potion. It changed you to look like someone, but you were never that person. The potion changed me to look like Snape, so it looked like I had the Dark Mark on my arm, but it was only something that looked like the Dark Mark, not the real thing. So when I handed Voldemort the poison and he drank it, when he died all those with the Dark Mark died, but not Snape as he was in my body and his Dark Mark wasn't active at the time."
"Ingenious," said Hermione. "Very clever for you to figure it out, Harry."
"Thanks. I was a bit worried when he came for me dressed as a Death Eater. I thought for sure he was bringing me to Voldemort to kill me, but he wasn't."
"How did you know?" asked Ron.
Harry shook his head; that was one secret he could never reveal, not even to his two best friends. When Harry had been Polyjuiced into Snape; it wasn't just the man's appearance Harry had taken on, it had been his thoughts as well. Harry didn't know why it had happened, or even how, he just knew that for a brief moment Harry had known the man's mind. Perhaps it had something to do with how closely their minds needed to work for the Occlumency. And that brought with it another uncomfortable thought.
If Harry had known Snape's mind, did that mean Snape had also known Harry's?