Liquid Diamonds
shanna seanachai
[surrender then start your engines - you'll know quite soon what my mistake was] Neville had made a mistake again. Neville always made mistakes, but Hermione was at his side instantly, and she always got things right, before Snape swooped over to scowl and chide.
Except he hadn't come over this time. He'd been preoccupied, until Draco had laughed. Neville had withdrawn, his face red, flinching at the spurious comments that flowed from Malfoy's mouth. Then the laugh. Snape had looked up, jarred, and Malfoy had turned to him, sneer in place, still laughing.
Something had passed between them.
There had been a split second there, a moment in between the worlds, and Harry had seen something strange in Professor Snape's eyes.
Those eyes, so filled with horrible hate, shooting daggers at Draco Malfoy. Of all people! He'd felt surprise ripple through him, staining his face; his eyebrows shot upwards, his mouth quirked. And then Snape had seen him, and there had been a shutting down, a hiding. Those eyes, again, like two windows, and someone came along and slammed them shut. Shut, and the curtains drawn. And then the moment was over.
And Harry couldn't stop thinking about it. It stayed in his mind all through his next class, and all through dinner, and the whole time he was supposed to be studying with his friends. Now, buried deep under the covers in his bed, he was stilling puzzling over it. He wrapped the blankets tighter around him and closed his eyes.
He didn't know what was so important about it, that look in Snape's eyes, but Harry had generally come to a conclusion over the years that if something stuck in your mind for a long time, no matter how inconsequential it seemed, then it was significant. It would stay there, nagging at you, eluding you, until it was almost too late and it would jump out, and everything would fall into place.
[for those on horseback or dogsled - you turn on at the bend in the road] So why would Snape be furious with Malfoy? Malfoy was laughing, laughing at Neville. Neville couldn't be the reason. Snape held only contempt for Neville.
Eyes still closed, Harry replayed the scene over and over in his mind. Malfoy laughing, Snape looking up, surprised, startled out of his reverie. Malfoy turning his head toward Snape - as though to confide, to say 'Isn't he pathetic, Professor?' That mouth knotted up in a sneer, his pale eyes rolling. And then Snape's face had changed; the hate had come in. But Malfoy hadn't seen. He'd already turned his head the other way, to say something to Neville again. But Harry had still been looking at Snape, startled, and then their eyes had met. And then, no more.
He'd been over it countless times. What did it mean? He didn't know, and he needed to get to sleep. He turned his face into the pillow, ignoring the images in his mind, and began to count sheep.
[i hear she still grants forgiveness - although I willingly forgot her] Seventeen-year old Severus Snape could not sleep. It was the heat, the insufferable, deadly summer heat, and the memories that kept banging at his door.
He wanted to forget, forget what had happened to him a few months ago. But how could he, when every time he took off his clothes he was confronted with the aftermath - the fading bruises, the healing wound on his thigh. How could he forget when his mother kept making him associate with *them*?
They were what really kept him from forgetting. Oh, on top they were all smarmy nice - his mother thought they were perfect young men, the type he should hang out with. She didn't know what good, upstanding, well-brought-up Lucius Malfoy had done to him, what he kept threatening to do again unless Severus joined him and his friends in their thoroughly sinister activities.
That's what kept him from sleeping every night. But tonight there was something else, as well: a letter he'd received that morning. An invitation. James was getting married.
To her.
Why the hell had that bastard invited him? To rub it in his face? To make a spectacle of him?
To apologize?
Severus laughed into his pillow. The laugh scared him; it was the kind of laugh he used to laugh before, back when he had not known what it was like to love. To be loved; or, at least, the facsimile of being loved. Even if it had all been a farce, a fling, a series of muscle spasms for James, it had been so much more for Severus - at least for awhile. The memory of that feeling kept him going. The memory of that kept him sane and alive and strong enough to not totally give himself over to the Death Eaters.
[the offering is molasses - and you say] Because of all this, because the memory of what had once been was so important to him, he should not have gone. Reality disrupted memory, disrupted fantasy.
But he went anyway. He stayed in the back of the room during the ceremony, and when they kissed, he slipped out to the coat room, hiding in a corner, trying to get up the courage to either go back inside where everyone else was celebrating, or to leave.
James had seen him, though. He came into the coat room after about half an hour and stood there, staring at him.
"I didn't think you'd come."
"Why did you invite me, then?"
James shrugged.
Severus sneered, knowing it made him uglier then usual, knowing it made James flinch away; the knowing made him hurt, deep down inside, and somehow, some way, he desired the pain. "I'll tell you why you invited me. You wanted to make me jealous, or envious, or irrational; you wanted me to make a scene, to beg you to take me back, to try to stop you." The pure truthfulness of the revelation shocked him as he spoke, even though he'd known it already.
[i guess i'm an underwater thing so i guess i can't take it personally] James looked as though he was about to protest, and then stopped himself. He drew a breath. "You - you're right, of course. You always were good at getting to the heart of things. That's exactly why I did it. I'm sorry."
Severus wanted to scream. This was not the reaction he had wanted. It wiped the sneer away and left him looking lost and nervous. But still ugly. Oh, so ugly, without James.
"I have a question for you, now," James continued. "Knowing this, knowing full well why I asked you to come - why *did* you come?"
It shook Severus to the bone, threw him off balance. Something hot and wet rose behind his eyes. He swallowed hard. He started to leave, walking past James. But James stopped him.
"I shouldn't have asked. I'm sorry. This isn't your fault." He looked like the night it had all started, and the heat behind Severus' mask suddenly imploded, spurring him to life. He leaned forward and kissed James on the mouth; as he had then, yet differently. This kiss was gentle and filled with sorrow. The hungry power of pain was gone. He kissed him; and then he left, and James watched him leave.
[i guess i'm an underwater thing, i'm liquid running] He remembered this. He remembered it perfectly. He could see it, almost twenty years later, facet by perfect facet, as it ran through his mind. He remembered the way James had tasted, salty and wonderful, and yet different - tainted by her, her perfume on him, her soft, heavily scented love. That was why he left, and he did not beg, as James had wanted him to. He belonged to Lily, now. Yes, even now, even though they were both dead.
He remembered all this, but he could not remember what had happened to him, what had changed him, what had caused him sleeplessness and fear of Lucius Malfoy. What had caused the scar on his thigh, a long-faded but still apparent and crudely cut symbol that he could not discern. It was like part of his life, thousands of minutes of chilly knowledge had been lifted from his brain, and he had been unaware of it until recently. Now all he could feel was the open, gaping wound of his loss. All he could do was marvel at what he did remember, as it haunted him, taunting him with hidden knowledge. And it had been his own doing, this forgetting, hadn't it?
For after the wedding, he had gone home; ignored his mother and her questions and gone up to his own room, determined to forget. He'd spent three hours reminding himself of the essentials of forgetting: over and over again, holding his own hand to a hot candle flame, until he shook all over and he could not keep from crying. Then, burned and painful, he had gone to Lucius Malfoy, and told him he wanted in.
And there, right then, right at that moment, was the point where he had lost any kind of innocence he had left. He had left childhood and he had become and adult, a terrible adult, and he had never looked back, or at least, not for a good long while. Of course, that was what he had wanted.
[there's a sea secret in me and it's plain to see that it is rising] It was January now and every day Harry wondered more and more what was wrong with Snape.
All during these first months of his seventh year, Professor Snape had been different. He was not nicer or more lenient; he seemed faded, oblivious. And the balance had shifted, had changed. It seemed the Slytherins held him in contempt; they sneered at him, played jokes on him, were rude and callous. They pushed their limit, every chance they got -
- and Snape did nothing.
"Is Professor Snape all right?" he asked Dumbledore one morning. He had taken to visiting the headmaster on mornings when he had no classes: Dumbledore was like the grandfather he'd never had, and the only parental figure around, since Harry couldn't see Sirius very often.
Dumbledore looked perturbed at his question, in a way he never did, and Harry wondered if perhaps he should not have asked.
"Professor Snape merely has much on his mind - as you can guess."
Harry nodded.
"But there is something I want to talk to you about, Harry." Dumbledore sat up and opened a drawer. "I have here letters from your father to me. I thought you would like to have them."
Harry was surprised. But he supposed Dumbledore trusted him with these things; and he surely wanted to read these letters, to know the way his father thought, what his handwriting looked like...
"Thank you, Headmaster," he said, accepting the box from Dumbledore.
"And Harry...you know enough to keep whatever you read completely confidential, of course?"
"Oh, yes, Headmaster. Of course."
[but i must be flowing liquid diamonds] 5 January, 1978
Dear Professor Dumbledore:
Thanks for recommending me for the Ministry job. The money certainly helps - neither Lily nor I have much, and although my mother is always willing to help, I feel terrible leeching off her, especially now that she's all alone. Now that we have a steady income the house payments are no problem and already Lily is already talking about having children, if you can believe it...24 October, 1978
Dear Professor Dumbledore:
I hear Remus is in India right now - where have you sent him this time? I'm just joking, of course. He loves the errands you send him on, he's always wanted to see the world. You've just given him an excuse to run around and pretend he's actually doing something....11 June, 1979
Dear Professor:
Thank you for the flowers and your letter. I know you are busy, and I really didn't expect you to come to the funeral, what with all this fighting going on. I'm doing well, or as well as can be expected. I suppose with my inheritance now Lily and I are quite well off but I can't really care a lot; I miss Mum too much. I know she was sick and it was probably a blessed relief that she passed when she did, before it got to be very painful; and I know she's probably happier now with my father on the other side. I know all this, but somehow I still want her here, with me; I want her to see her grandchildren - but we kept putting it off, and now it's too late. Lily and I have spoken and we've decided to start trying for kids...30 December, 1979
Dear Professor:
Lily and I loved the Christmas presents, and yes, we had a wonderful holiday. Do you know what the best present of all was? On Christmas Eve we found out she's pregnant - Lily and I are going to be parents, finally, after all these months of disappointments! The baby will be born sometime in the summer; Lily wants a boy, for some reason, you would think she'd want a girl...28 March, 1980
Dear Dumbledore:
I was wondering if you'd gotten a chance to do what I'd asked you: talk to Severus Snape. Something is wrong and has been wrong with him for the past few years, and, with the company he has, I'm afraid he might have fallen into bad ways. Normally I would just say good riddance, as he always was such a sour person - or at least, as we always said but...I will not go into details, but I know Snape is not like those people he associates with. He's not someone to say good riddance to, and I know he is worth the trouble and the expense of trying to set straight. I know this, Dumbledore, and please don't ask me how I know, because I couldn't bring myself to let you know, or risk Lily finding out. All I know is that Snape is not a bad person, and I don't want him ending up dead or enslaved or in Azkaban, forever, paying for a mistake....[liquid diamonds] Harry stopped reading; his breath, which had been caught in his throat for awhile, suddenly whooshed out. He stared at the letter in his hands with some degree of amazement.
His father had urged Dumbledore to take Snape into confidence. His father was probably the reason Dumbledore trusted Snape.
Harry read the lines over and over, searching for what had instilled this trust and goodwill towards Snape in his father; but he could not find it. James Potter had been determined not to let anyone know - couldn't "risk Lily finding out", what on earth could that mean? - and Harry, try as he might, could not read between the lines to see what James hadn't said.
Harry wanted to know. He couldn't ask his father, he was dead; Dumbledore wouldn't know, James wouldn't have told him; the only person who might know was Snape...
Snape. What was wrong with Snape?
Things that seemed connected usually were; there was no such thing as coincidence - something was wrong with Snape, and Harry had no doubt it had something to do with the contents of this letter, and what James had not wanted Dumbledore to know about, and other events during those years after they had left Hogwarts. He itched to find out. He itched to let Hermione and Ron know; but he had promised Dumbledore not to let anyone know about the content of these letters. And, well, on second thought, he wasn't sure he wanted them to know. Maybe he wanted to deal with this himself. Uncover this mystery on his own.
Snape. It all came down to Snape: he was where it all began.
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