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Fighting Harry | ||||||
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Category: Post-OotP, Post-HBP Characters:All, All Genres: Drama Warnings: None Story is Complete Rating: PG Reviews: 112 Summary: When Harry decides the time is ripe to search for the remaining Horcruxes, Ginny demands to accompany him. Harry refuses, and leaves with Ron and Hermione the day after his seventeenth birthday. But Ginny's not the sort of girl to wait at home. She'll do anything to prove that she can survive without Harry...even join Voldemort. When Harry's turned away, what will save her from the Dark? And what will Harry do, when he realizes his mistake? Hitcount: Story Total: 59887; Chapter Total: 4674 Author's Notes: This is a boring but necessary chapter. Well, I don't think it's boring, but then for me it's simply a means of presenting ideas and answering questions, as more questions are produced and left unanswered. |
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Chapter Two: Snape's Story Snape poured her a glass of wine. “Sit down,” he told her, more gently. "Let me tell you a story.” Ginny was confused, but she hid it well. She had learned how to hide her emotions well in the six years she’d been in love with Harry Potter. The six long, miserable years. So she only took the glass, and pulled up a chair. “I’m listening.” Her former Potions master poured himself a drink, and watched her, the expression unreadable in his glittering black eyes. "I have wards up that will tell me if someone approaches, or if anyone is listening in," he commented, and fell silent. “My mother was a twin,” he said, at last. “Her sister’s name was Elyse, and my mother’s was Eileen. They were purebloods, both of them. But Elyse was a Squib.” Ginny didn’t dare to interrupt, even though she didn’t understand why he was telling her this. She knew Snape; he wasn’t particularly sentimental, and never without good cause. He continued. “My mother loved her, however, and when Elyse married a muggle, Mother did too. Aunt Elyse’s husband was a man by the name of Jack Evans. He was handsome, reckless, intelligent, and above all terrified of magic. My aunt gave up everything, her identity, her parents, her friends, her world. Everything except her sister, who she continued to associate with. Just so he could be happy.” “My father was brutish, rough, and he disliked magic. He and Jack were good friends, so I spent a lot of time around my aunt and uncle growing up. Jack and Elyse had two daughters: Petunia and Lily. Petunia was non-magical; a muggle. But Lily was a witch.” She raised an eyebrow. Lily Evans. Harry’s mother. That meant that Harry and Snape were… “Cousins, yes. Lily was my cousin, though few people knew it. She pretended she was muggleborn for her parent’s sake, though her sister was repelled when Lily began showing signs of magic. Her father was not. What he had resented in his wife’s family, he could adore in his daughter. My uncle was a strange man, and he saw in his daughter a well-trained pet to do magic tricks, where in his in-laws he had seen a force stronger than he.” “People called Lily a Mudblood, myself included, for appearances sake. It would never have done for a Slytherin to be civil to a dirty-blooded Gryffindor. Lily never minded, though. She understand that some people need to feel superior to others in order to feel better about themselves, and she enjoyed tormenting them by leading the class–a Mudblood! Not unlike your friend Granger, but where Granger can’t resist showing off her knowledge, Lily held her tongue–that is, until the crucial moment where a Slytherin had been singled out to answer and had failed. With her quick words and even quicker temper, she made enemies, but she made even more friends.” “Everyone who didn’t care about her bloodline loved her, and so did some who did. She was my best friend as well as my favorite cousin growing up. Once we got to Hogwarts, little changed, except that we both understood that it was better if we were not seen together too often. Still, we studied together in the evenings, particularly Potions, which both of us enjoyed. We could still talk about everything, and more than once we snuck out of our Houses to go flying at night.” Snape paused, and took a sip of his wine. “Seventh year everything changed. The Dark Lord began getting stronger, and my friends began pressuring me towards the dark side. Worse yet–Lily began dating that oaf, James Potter, whose friend Black had nearly gotten me killed. Lily was all that ever held me to Dumbledore’s side, surrounded as I was by Death Eaters, both future and present. When she was too busy with Potter to spend time with me, I began to question my alliances. I was furious with her for seeing him, and I didn’t speak with her for most of our seventh year. Potter never noticed. He only thought that I hated her because she was thought a muggle-born, though, to be sure, I don’t believe Lily ever told him differently.” “When did you turn to Voldemort?” Ginny asked, refusing to show that she was surprised by his information. It explained a lot about Snape. “The night that Lily and James announced their engagement,” Snape answered bluntly. “There was nothing left for me on their side anymore. The Dark Lord offered me many things, power, and a place to belong. At Hogwarts the Slytherins are outcasts, though few see it. The other three houses hate them, always, for things they aren’t responsible for. It’s enough to make anyone want to seize power.” “Lily heard or guessed soon enough that I had joined the Death Eaters. She avoided me, and for a while, I thought she was afraid. Later she confessed that she was worried what would happen to me if I was seen associating with her.” “One night, when I was getting a drink and watching out for Order members, I overheard a prophecy in a Hogsmeade pub, foretelling the birth of one with the power to defeat the Dark Lord forever. I had run trotting back to my master, currying favor as we all did. I’m not proud of it; I honestly thought that the world would be better off with the Dark Lord ruling it. Then my aunt and uncle, Lily’s parents, were killed by Death Eaters. I wasn’t part of it, and I hadn’t known about it. But when Lily came to me, crying, I realized where I was wrong.” “I had received a letter delivered by means only my cousin could have contrived. We met, in a dingy coffee shop outside of Edinburgh, according to her wishes. I shouldn’t have gone; my loyalties were to the Dark Lord. But she was my best friend, my favorite cousin. She told me in the letter that she needed my help, and, Death Eater or not, I would have gone to great lengths to provide it.” Despite herself, Ginny was captivated by the story of the two cousins, fighting on different sides. “What did she want?” Snape grimaced, slightly. “She wanted me to know why I had gone over to the Dark Side. I had no answer, but that they accepted me. Still, I told her that I was sorry, and that I wasn’t part of the attack. She said that she never believed that I had been, and furthermore, that she loved me, even if I had been.” “Grief aside, she wanted my help crossing Potter. Normally, I would have enjoyed doing so, but the situation was different. Lily wanted to fight in the war, and Potter refused to let her do so.” “So what did you do?” Ginny asked. “I asked her if she knew who I fought for,” Snape replied silkily. “She told me that she didn’t care if I fought for Voldemort, and she didn’t care if I was against her cause, I was her family and her friend, and she trusted me. Lily was devastated that I had joined the Death Eaters, but she loved me anyway. That was Lily. Unconditional love. It may be James’s arrogance that gets Harry to whatever mess he makes of his final meeting with the Dark Lord, but it will be Lily’s love that carries him through it.” “That sounds as if you’re on Harry’s side,” Ginny observed. Snape raised an eyebrow at her. “The truth has no side,” he told her. “And I’m not finished. My first reaction was to prevent Lily from fighting, but I knew better than anyone that she was her own person, and I knew what desperate, suicidal measures she would resort to if I didn’t help her. And I realized, that once I got her going, I had to rely on Potter to protect her, because I wouldn’t be in a position to do so. I felt I had failed her, because I wasn’t by her side when she got the news of her parents death, and I could have prevented it, if I’d paid more attention to my fellow Death Eaters. They didn’t know that Lily and I were related. I owed her my help.” “So I swore her to secrecy; gave her information that she promised to use only for her own safety, and not for the good of the Order. I told her how Death Eaters communicated, taught her signals, spells, code words, and what to expect from an attack. Against my better judgment, I gave her a location of a planned attack I knew of, and told her to be innocently in the area shopping with an Auror friend of hers, Alice Longbottom. Alice had just gotten married, and was in need of household linens. The attack was to be a small one; just three Death Eaters. I told her which ones, who would be leading, what time, and what to expect. I knew she and Alice could handle them, and if not, I trusted Potter to be hot on her heels. I sent him an anonymous note that morning, just in case. If all went well, he would see that she was able to handle herself in a fight.” “A few days later we met in a muggle café, both disguised, of course. Lily was beaming. They had repelled the Death Eaters, and James was so proud of her! He now wanted her as his patrolling partner, as soon as the baby was born. For Lily had more news: she was pregnant, and due in late July to early August. She and Potter couldn’t have been more thrilled.” “I don’t recall how I made it out of the café that day. I only know that I went immediately to Dumbledore, and confessed everything I knew. I expected him to kill me, or have me locked up. It would have been worth it. I had put Lily and her child in terrible danger.” “But he didn’t send you to Azkaban,” Ginny supplied. “Dumbledore believed in second chances. He let you redeem yourself by becoming a spy, and he arranged things so well that Voldemort never had reason to suspect. And I’m guessing he taught you Occlumency.” Snape nodded curtly, and drained his glass. “I’ve been loyal to Dumbledore ever since. Besides Lily, he was the only person that ever gave me a chance. I never forgave myself for Lily’s death, and I’ve always worked to protect Harry, despite that he’s insufferably arrogant like his father. Keeping that in mind, I took an Unbreakable Vow for Narcissa and Bellatrix last year, to prove my loyalty. They backed me into a corner. I always assumed I’d die leaving it unfulfilled.” “But Dumbledore didn’t want that.” Ginny stated. “He was too noble. He made you promise, I’m sure, and backed you into a worse corner saying that you would be better protection for Harry as a spy than he would. I’m sure he dragged Lily into it. But why now? Dumbledore’s gone.” “Clever,” Snape acknowledged. “But I owe it to Lily to see her son through this. The Dark Lord destroys, and if my cousin taught me anything, it was the beauty of building.” “Problem is, Harry turns away anyone who might actually be able to help him,” Ginny commented bitterly. He responded with a slight, reflective smile. “You remind me of Lily, in that you’re exceptional without having to let everyone know it. Until you approached me in your second year, I had never thought of Horcruxes, although I had always pondered how the Dark Lord survived his encounter with Potter years ago. When you mentioned that the diary was more like a living piece of Tom Riddle than a fading memory, I went straight to Dumbledore. He confirmed my fears, and suggested I work with you. He foresaw that Potter would love you, one day. I am sure he did not foresee Potter turning you away.” “I think he did,” Ginny said bitterly. “McGonagall told him about my Animagus; I think he’s been afraid of me knowing too much, in case I turn to the Voldemort.” Snape acknowledged her statement with a nod. “You might be right.” There was silence for a few minutes. “Where do you stand?” Ginny asked, after the pause. “What are you doing, now that Dumbledore’s gone and he was the only one who believed you?” “I will be waiting on the Dark Lord as always,” Snape answered. “And protecting blasted Potter’s interests any way I can.” Ginny thought about that. Here was Snape, with nothing to tie him to good anymore but ungrateful second cousin fighting an impossible battle. But still he fought, not because he liked or even respected Harry, but because he respected the sacrifice his cousin had made. Finally, she sighed. “Hermione was right. She usually is." Snape only raised an eyebrow, and she concluded. "Turning to Voldemort isn’t the answer. It didn’t work for you, and it wouldn’t work for me. But where does that leave me now? I can’t just sit around and wait.” “Don’t be an idiot," he told her, irritably. “What have you learned from me, and at my recommendation, over the years?” She paused, and ticked the things off on her fingers. “Occlumency. Legilimency. A study of the Dark Arts and recognizing them, Horcruxes in particular. Offensive and Defensive potions, curse-breaking, Animagic.” It took her a minute, but then she understood. “You think I can find Horcruxes on my own?” “Not entirely on your own,” he said grimly. “You’ll be helping me. I’ve gathered some information from things the Dark Lord has said over the years, but I can’t spend my time investigating it. You’re in the ideal position, because the world’s going to assume you’re with Potter, correct?” Ginny nodded. “And then, when I receive information that might be useful to the Order, you can twist it so that it won’t can’t be traced, and feed it to Hermione,” he told her. “And share information on how the search is going, so that we don’t overlap. She’ll tell everyone she got it from a reliable source, and they’ll be suspicious at first, but when her information is useful, they’ll be convinced. And she’ll believe that you’ve become a spy. I don’t want to be dragged into it before I have to be.” “Didn’t Dumbledore ever tell Harry about you being Lily’s cousin?” Ginny asked. Snape smirked. “He left it for me to do, and I’ve never felt the need to tell him. I loved Lily, but I still hated James, and Harry is James’ son.” “Lily’s too,” she reminded him, but he only sneered at her, and so she changed the subject. “Where will I be staying?” Snape sneered, his trademark gesture. “You can’t stay here, as I'm sure you're fully aware; it’s frequented by Wormtail and Narcissa, who is anxious about Draco because the Dark Lord is displeased with him. But I have a small house from my father’s family in the country, away from any prominent Order or Death Eater establishments. You can’t Apparate legally, but Fawkes can take you anywhere you need to go, and you know enough about disguises by now to take care of yourself when you get out. I can find you a wand to use that won’t register on the Ministry’s underage monitor, and I will Apparate when I have information for you, and when I have time to help. You know a lot about Horcruxes already; I have Dumbledore’s notes as well as my own, but they’re guarded by a powerful enchantment that judges by blood freely given whether or not the reader wishes evil finished.” Ginny only nodded, resignedly. It couldn’t be any worse than what Hermione was doing, honestly. He read her expression. “It’ll only be paperwork at first. Then you’ll be getting out more often than the ‘trio,’ I’m afraid, and alone too. It will be dangerous. I’ll go with you when I can, but for the most part, it will be up to you to use your knowledge of the Dark Arts and Curse Breaking to get a hold of the objects without killing yourself in the process.” “How do you destroy a Horcrux?” she asked. Snape smiled. “That is an excellent question, and one I didn’t know the answer to until recently, when I went back and looked through some boxes in my closet from staff Christmas parties and such. Among all of the insipid little love potions and thick cloaks–Flitwick in particular believes I keep my classroom too cold–I found this.” He held up a necklace, with a heavy locket on it. It was inscribed with sinister, fading symbols, and reminded Ginny distinctly of a ring she’d seen Dumbledore wearing earlier in the school year. But there were cracks running over every inch of it, and the whole thing seemed shattered an broken, though it still held together. “This was a Horcrux, once,” he said. “I had just turned a spy when Regulus Black gave this to me, gasping and half dead. Then a few of my fellow Death Eaters arrived and killed him, muttering about deserting the Dark Lord.” “I didn’t show them the locket. I had always respected Regulus. Where his older brother turned his swelled head to matters of pranks and forbidden magic, Regulus applied himself, and studied much of Dark Magic. Somewhere along the way he must have realized how Dark Lord was staying alive, never aging. Like me, he joined the Death Eaters, never intending to reveal his secret. Then Amelia saw him, that very day, on his first mission.” “Amelia Bones?” Ginny asked. “The Ministry witch who was killed last summer?” Snape nodded, grimly. “She was older than him by a few years, but only a few. They had been in love for years, and she had been working to convince him that Dumbledore’s way was best. I’m sure he was skeptical, knowing as he did how well-protected the Dark Lord was. But gradually, he had begun to believe in her world, a world where the Dark Arts were never practiced as a means of amusement and marriage was a matter of love rather than blood. They had quarreled the night before he joined the Death Eaters, and that had been what pushed him to it. But when Amelia found him the next day, covered in blood and a fresh scar on his arm, she didn’t run away in fear. She cried, but refused to leave him, Death Eater or not.” “It was then that he realized where his loyalties truly lay. Joining the Dark Lord had been a rash decision, and he would only be free to marry Amelia when the Dark Side was finished. He decided to begin ridding the Dark Lord of his immortality. It was the right job for him, he was highly intelligent, the likes of which bypassed even your Granger, and he understood very quickly how the Dark Lord’s mind worked.” “Unfortunately for him, it was about that time that Crabbe and Nott saw him with Amelia. They threatened to kill her, and he fought them over it. Malfoy, Lestrange, and Dolohov caught up with him the next day, on the Dark Lord’s orders. This was the only Horcrux he destroyed.” Ginny’s expression was grim. “You never said how they’re destroyed.” Snape nodded. “It’s trivial enough. They’re made by evil, they’re undone by good. A Horcrux is destroyed by a supreme act of love, for the better of someone else. Regulus risked his life and his cover to prevent Crabbe and Nott from attacking Amelia, and the Horcux’s power went out at that moment. You could also carry a Horcrux to an elopement, or to the birth of a magical child with deformities. Any instance where love sacrifices to protect someone else. Harry destroyed the diary, but he was only able to do so because he risked his life to rescue you in the first place. Dumbledore had a ring of the Dark Lord’s, earlier in the year. When he made me promise to go through with my Vow rather than die, as I would have preferred, the Horcrux in the ring was destroyed.” “How many Horcruxes are out there, how many are left, and how many of those destroyed is Harry aware of?” Ginny inquired. The Death Eater’s expression turned grim. “You remember, we discussed years ago that it would make more sense for the Dark Lord to create many, than for just one. Dumbledore agreed. He believes there are seven. One of them is still in the Dark Lord’s body, and that one cannot be destroyed by love or anything else until the others are finished. The diary is gone, and so is the ring, and the necklace. That leaves three. Dumbledore was of the opinion that one Horcrux is a cup that once belonged to Helga Hufflepuff, another would be an artifact of Ravenclaw’s or Gryffindor’s, and, lastly, he believed that the snake Nagini is a Horcrux.” “You don’t think so?” Ginny inferred. There was a strange expression in her former teacher’s eyes as he looked at her. Pity? “I don’t know. It’s relatively likely that Nagini is a Horcrux. If anything, I doubt that he got a hold of anything of Ravenclaw’s or Gryffindor’s, considering that the only known artifact of Gryffindor’s is safe, and something of Ravenclaw’s would be exceptionally difficult to get a hold of.” Ginny understood that there was something he wasn’t sharing, but she didn’t press it. If she needed to know, he would tell her. So she stood up. “I left my bag hidden under a mulberry bush a half-mile away, when I transformed,” she told him. He nodded, and bequeathed her with a rare, if bitter, compliment. “You’re so much smoother at such things than Potter. He blunders on, attracting notice and Death Eaters, and you slither in the shadows. He doesn’t know what he’s doing.” Aside from another pang of a broken heart, Ginny held herself steady. “I don’t expect he does,” she said softly. “And I don’t expect he ever will.” Snape ignored that. “Give them a week or so to stumble about, then go to Hermione and show her the necklace,” he told her, putting the shattered locket into her hand. “Till then, keep it well hidden indeed. Go find your bag as a snake; I’ll go for a walk in about an hour, and we’ll Apparate from there to the place where you’ll be staying. Merlin curse it, I hate Side-Along-Apparition.” Ginny didn’t crack a smile. It had been a long day, and it would an even longer week. She’d show him. He’d realize that she was as capable as he was and more to take care of himself in a war-torn country. He’d regret the day he had turned her away, both her presence and her help. She’d show him. She was more than a victim, more than just Harry Potter’s Girlfriend. She was Ginny. |
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