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Road to Damascus, Part 1
Part 1:
Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
The dear repose for limbs with travel tir’d;
But then begins a journey in my head,
To work my mind, when body’s work’s expir’d:
For then my thoughts (from far where I abide)
Indeed a zealous pilgrimage to thee,
And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,
Looking on darkness which the blind do see:
Save that my soul’s imaginary sight
Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,
Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night,
Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new.
Lo, thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind
For thee, and myself, no quiet find.
-William Shakespeare (Sonnet XXVII)
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The whiskey burned as it sloshed down his throat. The first one always burned, but in the end, the result was well worth it. He poured another and leaned back against the plush cushions of his high backed chair. 'Well, tonight has been a total waste,' Snape thought. The burn was less as he tossed back his second drink, but he felt it make its way down his throat and into his stomach. After two whiskeys, quickly consumed, and a night like his, he was beginning to feel the effects. Blissful oblivion was on its way. He poured a third and slammed it back to halt the sudden onslaught of memory. He couldn't reflect too much on any part of his life anymore. Not that he even wanted to think, it was more a force of habit at this point. The fourth went down easily and it wasn't until the sixth that he heard the requisite knock on his door.
"Sodding old fool," he grumbled. "Alohomora!"
The door unlocked and opened slightly. A cautious hand slipped around the door and slowly pulled it open all the way.
"Professor?" The voice was tired and worn out. Over the past few years, the owner of that voice had come to look the same.
"Come in," came Snape’s slightly slurred voice. "And Potter," the dark man sat up slightly, "if I have to tell you again to call me either Snape or Severus. . . I will hex you."
"Fine. . . Snape," Harry said, walking into the room. Even after the five years Harry had spent on staff at Hogwarts, he still found it difficult to address the foreboding man by his first name.
It was dark in the dungeons, and the warmth from the cedar fire filled his lungs immediately . He couldn't see Snape when he walked in. His eyes swept the room and saw a stray foot sticking out from in front of the chair nearest the door. 'How unlike Snape to put his back to an entrance,' mused Harry. Throughout the time they'd worked together at Hogwarts and the countless Order missions Snape had helped him prepare for, he couldn't recall ever seeing Snape facing anything but the places an enemy might come from.
"Dumbledore sent me to debrief you. He was called up to the ministry at the last moment." Harry walked around the side of the fire-lit chair. He couldn't contain a startled gasp as he rounded the corner.
"Oh Gods, Severus. . .what happened?" Snape threw back his seventh whiskey and looked fully at Harry. His face was bruised and his nose was definitely broken. Harry's eyes swept over Snape's body to assess the damage. The older man was holding his left arm close to his body and a deep gash spiraled out from the inside of his forearm all the way up to the bicep. The mangled appendage hung at a very odd angle, and Harry knew instantly that Severus' shoulder was dislocated and the lower part of his arm was broken. Harry had had his own share of broken bones in his time and could only imagine the amount of pain the slumped figure was in.
Snape's robes, for all intents and purposes, were shredded. His left leg was heavily bruised and the skin over his kneecap was oozing blood. Harry stood, shocked, over Snape's form.
"Well, I was rolled by a group of militant first year girls who had just read Hogwarts: A History and seen Lockhart's picture. They insisted that I sign their petition to bring him back and I refused. . . what in the hell do you think happened, Potter?" Severus slurred his words, and Harry could smell the alcohol on his hot breath. Snape reached for the bottle to pour his eighth and knocked it off the table.
"Dammit!" Snape leaned over to pick it up, making it plain to Harry that he’d been whipped. Harry could plainly see lash marks crisscrossing his pale flesh. Snape lost his balance as he reached for the whiskey and fell forward to the floor on his knees. He didn't even flinch at landing on the shredded knee. He picked up the bottle and sat back on his haunches, looking defiantly up at Harry.
"You need to go to the hospital wing, Severus." Harry reached down and easily pulled Snape to his feet. Snape gave Harry a decidedly disgruntled scowl as he was hoisted up. Harry, for his part, was shocked to feel how light the older man was. Harry knew that Snape hardly ate at meals, but he had always thought that he had more muscle to him. His giant, billowing robes were, apparently, deceiving.
"I won't go." At this point he sounded less like a drunk and more like a defiant child to Harry. "Poppy doesn't need to see this."
Harry had not let go of Snape's arm, suddenly realizing this Snape shrunk from his touch. Harry tightened his grip ever so slightly, leaning in towards the petulant man before him, and said, quietly, "it's her job, Severus."
"I won't do that to her, Potter." Snape wrenched his arm from Harry's grasp and sat in the chair gingerly. He looked, meaningfully, at Harry. "It would bring back too much for her. I won't put her through that." Severus poured another drink from the nearly empty bottle, contemplated it for a moment and then drank deeply of the amber liquid. He deposited the glass on the end table nearest his chair and leaned fully back against the soft leather, closing his eyes momentarily when the ragged flesh of his back came in contact with it.
Harry mentally slapped himself for being so daft. Poppy had lost her son in one of Voldemort's murderous rages only three months ago. He had been the lead Auror in a rather large raid on one of Voldemort’s hiding places. Harry shook off the image of the young man falling dead before him, a glow of green light being absorbed into his body.
"Let me at least help you, then. You know I took a basic mediwizardry class when I applied to be a professor. Dumbledore insists upon it for all of us new professors." Harry's wand was already in his hand, waiting for a response.
"Potter, I have never required another to patch me up after a night with that psychopath. I can take care of myself." Snape reached forward and grabbed a potion bottle from the table in front of him. Harry caught his hand and Snape looked up at him.
"It's my fault. I varied from the plan on the last raid, and now you're paying for my imprudence." Severus allowed Harry to take the potion bottle from him and sat back.
"Nonsense, Potter. Once again, you overestimate your importance." They were biting words, but from the exhausted man they sounded like a sad lie. Over the past year, Harry had seen this deep sadness begin to overcome the man in front of him.
Harry knew that his indiscretion at the raid on the MacNair estate would prove costly, but he just couldn't let the son of a bitch get away. He had used information Severus had reported to the Order for his own selfish purposes. He had used it to take revenge. MacNair had used Avada on Ron two weeks prior to the raid, and Harry had wanted retribution. So, he used information that only a Death Eater could have known, that only Snape could have provided, for his own means. Now Snape was paying the price for his visceral reaction in a very tangible way.
"I don't need your pity or guilt, Mr. Potter," Severus whispered, looking away. The fire glowed orange against his sallow skin. The leaping flames threw him into sharp relief and Harry saw how truly tired Severus was. Over the past few years, the circles under his eyes had become a deeper purple and his once-obsidian hair was now flecked with grey. His movements as of late were less the sweeping, imposing potions master and more the nervous, unsure child. All of his bravado and confidence seemed to have seeped away from him in the past few months. He seemed tiny in the large chair, like a broken mockery of the man he once was.
The sorrow welled up in Harry. So many had paid such a great price in the war against Voldemort. Many had died, and many more had lived when dying surely would have been easier. In his over two years as an auror and the five that followed working at Hogwarts, he had seen just how much people would sacrifice; how much people were willing to pay to see Voldemort defeated.
Upon joining the Order, Harry had discovered that the history of the Order was revealed to members via group Pensieve. The members felt it was important to keep the sacrifices of its elite as a living memory. Harry quickly learned that Snape’s memories were not included in this Pensieve.
It had taken a few years, but Harry built up the nerve and inquired about this omission to Dumbledore. His response was permanently seared into Harry's mind. . . “My boy, what Severus has seen and endured for the good of the Light would not fit in one Pensieve. In any case, he refuses to excise any of his memories. Still holding on to long passed transgressions, I believe.” Dumbledore's response stuck in Harry's mind because that was the moment, for him, that Snape became more than a prowling, sardonic git. He became human.
In the two years after that particular conversation, Harry had become closer to Snape, well as close as anyone but Dumbledore was to Snape, anyway. Shortly after their relationship had morphed from grudging tolerance to grudging acceptance of another's’ presence, they were asked to work together to prepare for Order missions. It was the middle of Harry’s third year of teaching, and to Harry’s great surprise, Snape had not resisted being teamed up with him. Snape revealed to him, about a year after they began working on Order matters together, that sometime during Harry’s second year as a teacher he started to find him much less annoying and by the time they began working together, that he had grown to respect him. The compliment had taken Harry aback, but from then on they formed a tepid friendship that included the occasional game of Wizard’s chess or argument over the Ministry.
Harry had resisted when Dumbledore asked him to debrief Snape. He had never seen him after a night with Voldemort, and had hoped to keep it that way. Snape’s reports, however detailed, had provided him with only nominal insight as to what happened to the man personally. However, his imagination, fueled by brief glimpses of a black eye here or a smear of blood there, gave him a very vivid picture of what the man went through. Snape adjusted his position in the chair and groaned quietly. Harry's attention returned to the barely conscious man below him.
"I want to help you." The words emerged from Harry's lips before he could curb them. It was only when he heard them aloud that he realized that was what he wanted to do more than anything. This man had saved his life on occasions too numerous to count, he had taught him more about potions and the dark arts than anyone else, and over the past three years they had worked together for the Order; he had grown to think of Snape as a friend. It was only now that he realized that the friendship extended to more than just Wizard’s chess. He was truly worried for Severus’ well being.
"No one can help me, Harry." The words were earnest. Harry's stomach dropped as he realized that Severus truly believed that.
Harry knelt in front of Severus and took his uninjured hand in both of his. He gently stroked Severus' wrist as he whispered to him, "you've suffered enough." Severus closed his eyes and his head dropped back.
Harry had to close the gap between them to hear his soft murmur. “When you’ve sold your soul to the Devil, the suffering you endure is never enough. There can be no redemption: I deserve this.” A low sigh sounded in the quiet room.
"Severus, I have not been forced to stay here with you. I could have walked out at any time. I want to help you, but I will not force myself on you. I want to be here. May I stay?" Harry continued stroking Severus' wrist, feeling him come back to him for a moment.
“Harry,” Severus murmured weakly through chapped, broken lips. His usually prideful eyes, so devoid of that pride now, glinted quiet consent, so Harry stayed.
-TBC-
Part 2a
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