Erised - Chapter Twenty-One

[tamchronin]

At the tone, please fill in your request for a proper note and disclaimer, including any information about the status of any previous reviews/comments on this story, and whether or not you have in fact read the first one.  Thank you.

 

 

Hello!  Love again.  What sort of power does the love of friendship have, and how can you best wield it?  Today on our show, we have a few surprise guests, including two I've borrowed from the imaginings of Mr. George Lucas. (Please don't sue me!  Insert disclaimer here!  They walked in on their own and I couldn't help but use them for this!)

 

Host:  Good evening, and welcome to the Random Pre-Chapter Insert Show!  Our first guest is a man who claims to have no need of love in any form.  We all know him and loathe him, please give it up for He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named!

 

Audience:  (silence)

 

Voldemort:  (walks out and grins, waving, then signals to the Death Eaters stationed at every aisle)

 

Bellatrix Lestrange:  On your feet and applaud, worms, or we'll start in with some Unforgivables!

 

Audience:  (applauds like their lives depend on it)

 

Voldemort:  Thank you.  Thank you.  You're too kind.  (sits down)

 

Host:  So, tell us about your views on friendship.

 

Voldemort:  What?

 

Host:  Friendship.  You do have friends, don't you?

 

Voldemort:  I have minions.  Do they count?

 

Host:  Right, and we've also got Emperor Palpatine to weigh in on the subject.  Please, some applause, so he won't bring in storm troopers.  (aside) These sets cost more money than the lot of you are worth, and we all know they can't hit human targets...but our producer can!

 

Emperor Palpatine:  (walks in and sits down)  Friends are a weakness in others, to be exploited.  Even minions are not to be trusted, which is why I commissioned my own vast army of clones, built to specifications that do not include pesky things such as friendship.

 

Host:  Nor aim, obviously.  Bureaucracy cutting a few corners, as usual.

 

Well, there was going to be more, but I think it would be a good idea to cut to a new chapter, while I go find myself a new host...

 

 

Chapter Twenty-One

Nightmare of Reason

 

Harry didn't dare let go of the cloak until they'd reappeared in Severus's time.  He was trembling slightly from the will it had required for him to not walk over and put an end to everything right then and there.

 

"I should have killed him right then and there," Harry muttered, finally releasing his death grip on the cloak.

 

Severus looked at him with a cool and measuring gaze for a minute, and then he sat down on his bed.  "If he's so bad, why didn't you?"

 

Harry slowly folded his cloak, frowning in thought as he did so.  "Well.  He was just a little kid, really."

 

"That just means it would have been easier, though, doesn't it?"

 

"We're supposed to be fixing paradoxes, not making them worse.  And besides that, I'd like to think I'm better than he was, to go after someone who was completely helpless.  It might be the easier way, but I'm sure it is not the right way."

 

Severus nodded slowly, resting his elbows on his knees awkwardly and frowning.  "Even if people are going to die, because you couldn't bring yourself to go back in time?  Didn't you say he killed your parents?"

 

Harry looked at the bed and thought about sitting next to him, but he couldn't bring himself to do it.  He was trying hard now to separate the Severus before him from the Professor Snape he knew and loathed in his own time, but he still couldn't bring himself to sit so close.  Instead, he sat down on the floor and hugged his knees to his chest, cloak clutched tightly to him in what space that allowed.  "He's done much worse than that," said Harry in a slow murmur, staring at the dark space beneath the bed.  "I can't begin to say it all right now, and I know that I can't be the person who has suffered the most, but the price is more than I am prepared to pay.  Even if the whole universe wouldn't completely implode, if I kill someone for who they might become, for who they are destined to be, it makes me just as bad as he is, in a way.  And that's something I can't even stand the thought of, after everything else that has happened."

 

Severus looked at him funny.  "I've never fancied myself the heroic type, personally, though it seems like you do.  It seems so impractical..."

 

Harry looked up.  "Maybe it's because you haven't had to think about it as much as I have.  Ever since I came to Hogwarts, I've had to learn much more than just magic.  First I think I had to learn how to be a human being, and that was hard enough.  My aunt and uncle and cousin treated me as less than dirt beneath their feet.  When I started Muggle school, teachers had a hard time getting my attention because I hadn't heard my own name since I was only a year old.  It was at the end of my first year here that I faced Voldemort on my own, and I knew ever since then that I had to learn as much as I could because I'd have to face him again.

 

"On some level or another, I've been thinking about it since that day.  Not obsessively, but it's something I haven't been able to avoid, either.  This past year, I've had extra lessons with Dumbledore, and we've talked a great deal about what I may or may not have to do.  I've learned a lot about Voldemort, and I've thought a lot about the ways we're similar, but especially the ways in which we are very different.  I need us to be different, and I don't think I can explain to anyone why I need it so much.  I mean, there's the obvious, where I don't particularly have the urge to be a cold-blooded killer, or evil, or anything of the sort, but I'll bet that the eleven-year-old we just saw didn't exactly have those sorts of aspirations, either.  It's something that just sort of happened to him along the way, because of the choices he made.  He chose to put everything, even others, under his need for power.  I think, personally, I'd up everything else in the world just to have one perfect year with someone I love.  All the power in the world, for one perfect year, even if I knew I'd die at the end of it."

 

"You're insane," Severus said, though not without a touch of awe in his voice.

 

"Probably a little," Harry conceded with a slight grin.  "If I am, I've earned it.  It's something I can deal with when this is all over, though."

 

"You've got a hero complex."

 

Harry just nodded.

 

"And a bit of a superiority complex."

 

"I hate to point it out," said Harry in a wry tone, "but you've called me a lot worse, for a lot less."

 

"Yes, well, twenty or so years of sharpening my wit and honing my distaste with the idiots that pass for students in this place, it doesn't surprise me in the least.  I still can't believe I came here knowing more than half of the teachers, let alone everyone attending classes."  Severus looked decidedly put out by that, and frustrated beyond belief.  "And then to be shown up in every subject, even those I know, by a filthy little mu--" Severus paused, looking at Harry and clearly taking note of the flash of anger in his eyes.  He continued a moment later; though it was obvious he'd just amended what he'd been about to say.  "--Muggle-born girl, just because she learns quickly, when I've known it all, all along."

 

"Yeah," said Harry, looking down at the floor now.  "Not to mention, well, I know what my dad put you through.  And I still hate you, by the way, for taking it out on me all this time, but at least you haven't done that, here.  And if I'm not going to try to kill Tom Riddle for what Voldemort will do, then I'd be an idiot to hold all that against you, if there's a chance it could change, right?  Besides that, I know what it's like, and--"

 

"Spare me your pity," Severus said sharply.

 

"But it's not!" Harry said, glaring.  "I've wished I could say something about it for a year now, since I found out, because no one deserves to be treated the way my dad treated you, and I know it.  No matter how unpleasant they are."

 

Severus rolled his eyes and stood up.  "We should have returned by now.  The others will be concerned, and probably do something stupid like try to find us, if we don't hurry up."

 

Harry hesitated and then stood also, heaving a heavy sigh.  He put his cloak on without another word, frustrated with himself for making the attempt to reach out to this past version of Snape, and even more frustrated with Snape for acting as if he were allergic to any sign of kindness or friendship.  Then again, Harry knew that soon, if some things continued unchanged even by Peter Pettigrew's death, Severus would become a Death Eater.  How close was he to that, already?  How had it happened?  Was it because he didn't have any other friends?  Or was there something fundamentally wrong with Snape that he'd turn to evil?

 

He cringed inwardly as a voice within his mind that sounded eerily like Hermione's pointed out (as the real Hermione had many, many times) that Dumbledore trusted Snape.  Harry had never put much stock in that idea, because Snape was just so cruel and biased and petty and greasy and ugly and, well, evil.  Wasn't he?  But, there was something about meeting him on equal ground that took that away and sort of deflated him in Harry's eyes.  Something sad and lonely about the other boy sort of made him wish there was something he could do, to turn Snape from the path ahead of him.

 

That could be just as wrong and just as dangerous as anything else that changed the past, though.  If Harry had his way, he'd start with saving his parents, but he knew that it was out of the question.  He'd been sorely tempted by the idea the first time he'd found out that time travel was possible, but Hermione had been right.  He could not do these things.  He could not interfere.  He could not change the past.

 

And yet, someone was doing that even now.  Voldemort was doing that, and Hermione had suggested that someone else was, as well.  Not to mention, they were interfering in the past right now, just by being here, no matter how they told themselves that they were just correcting a problem that someone else had begun.  They were interfering.  And really, would it destroy the universe to save his parents and Sirius and let Peter die and maybe even help Severus grow up to be someone decent?

 

He thought of all of those things as he followed Severus back to the Room of Requirement.  When they walked inside, he was no closer to having answers than he was when they'd started, of course, but he was a little more aware of what the questions he had were.  He didn't think he could ask them, though.  Hermione would lecture him at length, of course.  The others...might go along with it, with all the right intentions, but would that make it better?

 

For now, he'd keep it all to himself and just tell them what they'd seen in the past.  That was for the best, until he knew more.

 

Harry slipped off the cloak as he closed the door and smiled.  For now, it was unimportant.  Only if Cedric had been in the room would everything seem more as if every bad thing in his life had been erased.

 

Maybe he was having his "perfect year" right now.  He decided he would take it.