The voice under all silences. Chapter 36
Aug. 28th, 2012 03:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pekeleke
THE VOICE UNDER ALL SILENCES. Chapter 36.
New year came and went, bringing a new sense of purpose to them all. The students returned with a renewed zest for misbehavior and the school became alive with the thrumming of young magic once again. The weather outside remained cold and unappealing, keeping everyone copped up within the school, and the corridors filled with unruly pranksters and their severely annoyed teachers. After enduring two whole weeks of overly boisterous behavior Severus set out to teach the student body how unwise it was to irritate him beyond patience.
Fed up of dealing with the utter nonsense caused by the unruliness of his copped up pupils he finally rose from his chair one evening and slowly approached Albus' announcement podium. He'd never even touched the dammed thing before and he wasn't particularly happy to be doing so right at that second, but... there wasn't much else left for him to do.
He proceeded then to inform his appalled student body of his decision to have the Room of Requirement arrange itself as a gymnasium, where he expected to see each and every one of them exercising, in some form, at least one hour a day.
The Ravenclaws gaped at him with such horror that he felt like laughing wildly and the Slytherins frowned in puzzled confusion. The Huffleppufs looked utterly floored and only the Gryffindors showed some sort of mild enthusiasm at the prospect of being granted an outlet for their excessive levels of energy.
Things returned to a more manageable routine after that and he was stopped every now and then by one prefect or another, asking him if they could get this or that sports equipment. At some point the children began to exchange stories about the kind of games they played at home and this led to some of them trying to branch out into some exclusively muggle activities that became a great success almost overnight.
The board of governors seemed stunned at the increasingly long list of material that he presented to them for approval, but other than a few timid questions about what was the purpose of a racquetball or why anyone needed a bat to play baseball instead of a “base” no one actually denied him the funds to purchase his new equipment.
As the children began to take interest in all kinds of sports, so did their parents and, eventually, the general population followed their lead. It amused him to see something so simple turned into a fantastic achievement that he'd apparently plotted and fought for with tooth and nail. He shook his head in wonder and ignored the ridiculous praise as best as he could thinking mostly nothing of it, until the unthinkable happened, and Luc arrived in his office so fast that his head began to spin with the uncomfortable awareness of just how very closely he was being watched by everyone around him.
“Draco tells me that, in America, muggles play this baseball game in fields that are as big as Quidditch ones. People come to watch these matches and eat dogs, can you believe it, Severus? This bloody muggles have an absolutely appalling taste in food!”
He stared at his aristocratic friend's revolted face for a long and shocked second, utterly unable to decide how to react. Laughter was bubbling up his throat in a wave of uncontrollable mirth but he attempted to remain as soberly solemn as he possibly could for the sake of his friend's pride. He ended up bitting his lower lip so hard that he tasted blood and pinched the crooked nub on top of his long nose for good measure.
“They don't eat real dogs, Luc” He managed to point out, after a second or two, and found himself on the receiving end of a totally horrified yelp of appalled disgust.
“They eat fake ones? Oh!... that is even more gross. Wait. Wait... How do they fake them? Do they have some intriguing machine that can harness the power of transfiguration?. You should see what they can do with the Lumos spell, Severus. It's incredible!... I've been fortunate enough to have been invited into Arthur Weasley's garden shed and I must say... the man has a point when he insists that the muggles are absolutely fascinating. They can perform Lumos on a grand scale with a flick of a little thing they call a switch. It's a magnificent sight. They bring light to entire cities with those switches, you know? It's called electricity. That's the same thing they use for your Internet network, too. I believe we should try to find out how to do just that with magic now that we are finally done with your web. Wouldn't it be wonderful to cast a single Lumos here and have the magic transfer itself everywhere in the castle at once?”
The question piqued his curiosity almost instantly and he looked at his friend through narrowed eyes. He'd been around the other man long enough to see this blatant attempt at manipulation for what it truly was.
“Luc... Why are you here?”
“Goodness, Severus!, anyone who hears you would think I only ever visit you out of interest. I haven't seen you since the holidays. You must come for tea some time. Cissy is worried about your health, you know?. She's convinced that you are working far too much and Draco tells me that you blasted half the hufflepuff table the other day with a bout of accidental magic...”
His head rose from the thick sheaf of papers that he'd been half-heartedly browsing and his shoulders became suddenly tense.
“Nothing happened, Luc, I swear. The children weren't even in the room at the time. We were trying to arrange the Great Hall so that the students could hold a friendly match of Cambok* when it happened. I spoke to Max and he seemed happy enough to let it go... Is the board going to suspend me over it?”
Appraising gray eyes settled on his pale face for a long moment and he held the look with as much quiet dignity as he could possibly muster. He hadn't wanted the job when he'd first gotten it, but he'd learned to enjoy the freedom that it gave him.
He liked coming up with new ways for the children to enjoy the sometimes arduous task of learning. He'd always adored the process of enriching his own voraciously curious mind with something new, but he understood that there were some kids out there who required some incentives to produce outstanding work. He honestly believed that he could make a difference there. He could implement newer and slightly more appealing techniques that should grab the attention of these children and focus it on their studies. He'd received nothing but compliments so far. His staff was content, for the most part, and the statistical data for the last nine-week period of academic work showed a thirty two per cent improvement over last year's results for the same period...
“You are the best thing that has happened to this institution in a very long time, my friend. Edwardson would be crazy to suspend you over an issue that only the staff knows about. There were no casualties involved and Minerva managed to revert the damage you caused to that table with a swift flick of her wand. No. The board isn't concerned with the erratic nature of your magic at this point, Severus. That was me talking as a concerned friend of yours. Why didn't you tell me anything about it? What's more... Why haven't you told Potter?”
His lips thinned into a line of mulish reticence. He disliked being asked about his motivations to do anything. There were things that he had to own up to, but... the sluggish return of his weakened magic was a subject that shamed him very deeply. He felt useless and exposed, whenever his attempts at casting perfectly regular and even low-level spells encountered difficulties, and had become quite adept at avoiding the awkward need for having to perform magic in front of anyone.
The episode with the table had been born of tired overconfidence and idiotic, hope-filled stupidity on his part. He'd felt utterly humiliated at the time, having to endure the horror of withstanding everyone's pitiful looks and helpful rushing to fix the mess he had created. He'd walked out of the Hall and holed in his lab for the rest of that night, trying to prepare himself mentally for the ordeal of having to call Max and tell him that he... he was a dangerous liability to the school.
Against his every expectation the head of the school governors had told him not to worry about that and outright refused to accept his letter of resignation. Now Luc wanted him to rake over that whole episode and he just... lacked the kind of energy necessary to look at his oldest friend in the eye and lie to him.
“I'm as good as a squib, Luc. The castle tries to boost my weakened spell-work, but the truth is that I... I'm unable to perform magic safely. I didn't want you to know, and I definitely don't want to worry Harry any more than he already is. This is something that affects me more directly than it affects either of you and I... I need to accept this limitation before I'm ready to cope with either of you trying to help. There's nothing left to recover, don't you see?. You both are always so certain that I'll wake up, one day, to find my magic restored that it makes it that much harder to speak about this with the two of you...”
Silence settled between them with the same wretched finality of a tombstone being lowered into place. Luc's aristocratic visage had lost all color. He'd turned rigid with outraged disagreement and it was clear to see that he was a single breath away from actually exploding into a tiresome spiel of ranted reassurances that Severus had no intention of bothering to listen.
“Don't!. Just... don't, Luc. Please... I'd be grateful if you leave it at that for the moment. There's nothing else for it, you must believe me”
The explosive sigh that rent the air made him flinch visibly in his chair and he turned his dark eyes towards the windows. There were moments when he wished the other man didn't know him as well as he did. There were times when he wished Draco wasn't here, witnessing his every failure, worrying about him incessantly and tipping his father off about his wellbeing, whenever the boy felt there was cause for the kind of intervention that couldn't be reasonably performed through a simple fire-call.
“Draco said you lifted the table without effort. You cast the feather-weight and levitation spells flawlessly, Severus. It was when Mctavish tried to butt in, that his unwanted interference distracted you from your casting. You thought the table was going to hit him, didn't you?. My son believes that you panicked because you are too wary of your magical ability to trust in it completely. You freaked out when that idiot got in your way and your instinctive reaction to protect him ended up with you blowing the whole table away with the overly powerful application of a defensive shield. That doesn't sound like the accidental burst of a depleting magical core, Severus. It sounds like sheer anxiety having gotten the best out of you, if I'm perfectly honest.”
“Draco and you, both, are trying to see what isn't there!. The table lifted up waveringly. It tilted to one side due to a weakness in my spell-work. Mctavish tried to help, but it was too late for him to do anything, I don't see the point of arguing about this any further!”
“I've been looking at Draco's memories of that accident and I'm pretty sure that you had your spell under control until that ridiculous excuse for a muggle studies teacher decided to intervene”
He was shocked right out of his ashamed indignation by that outrageous claim.
“Are you actually accusing a member of my staff of... what, exactly, Luc? What possible reason could Gregory Mctavish have to sabotage me?”
Elegant wide shoulders rose and fell in a delicately executed little shrug that pretty much dismissed the absent professor entirely.
“I'm not accusing that poor, infatuated, child of anything. He's done nothing to concern either of us, unless we are actually talking about the fact that his besotted hero-worship is driving Potter crazy”
His thoughts froze and his eyes widened with his very next heartbeat. He stared, with horrified disbelief, straight into Luc's laughing gray eyes and felt his every muscle turn to stone.
“Mctavish has a crush on Harry?” The words left a bitter taste on the surface of his tongue. They scorched him as he spoke them and his mind whirled with perfectly sickened worry. A sudden flash of the muggle studies professor's charmingly dimpled visage flashed across the surface of his mind and his stomach dropped to his toes with wretched sorrow. He'd been waiting for this to happen, to be perfectly honest. He'd already started to lose sleep over the many ways in which he could lose Harry's affection and this particular scenario was always at the very top of his list.
As the days had turned into weeks, without a single sign of the auror's focused interest in him losing a smidgen of strength, his heart had began to fill with the kind of hope that he knew would eventually harm him the most. His mind told him to be cautious but his newfound trust in crazy gryffindors urged him to believe in what he logically knew to be... ultimately impossible.
He'd learned to relish every single hint that reassured him of the fact that he hadn't managed to lose Harry's flattering interest in him yet. Despite all of that, he'd also began to fear the day when the boy finally canceled one of their encounters in order to accommodate the demands of a newer, and far more promising, friendship.
This perfectly reasonable worry circled his mind constantly and it had led him to a truly soul-destroying self-assessment on the quality of his own inexistent charms. That, in turn, ended up with him starting to lose even more sleep over the baffling idea that Harry must be able to see something of value in him. It was obvious that the boy certainly found him to be less than utterly repulsive, no matter how ridiculous he himself found that idea, and therefore there must be some sort of asset that he was in possession of, but others lacked...
For a while now he had pondered the thought to the exclusion of almost everything else. He had tried to analyze his own behavior, his ghastly looks, every single fact that the boy certainly knew about both, himself and the unfortunate circumstances of his life, in tireless search for that elusive something that he possessed but apparently Petersen hadn't. He desperately wanted to know what the source of Harry's baffling attraction to him could possibly be, but he could not explain the unexplainable, no matter how hard he tried. Now he'd finally ran out of time by the sound of things. Competition had arrived on the scene in the shape of a member of his own staff and he hadn't even managed to see it coming...
He felt so sickened by the very idea that his throat constricted to the point where taking his next breath became a challenge. He could feel his face turn ashen and was trying his best to hide the sudden tremor that was affecting his hands from Luc, by the very simple trick of curling his pale, long fingers into fists.
“Oh, for Salazar's sake, Severus!. How can you be this blind? Mactavish and Potter despise each other!. It's you that they are both lusting after and your close working relationship with that simpering buffoon is driving our great Saviour utterly mad.
He's mopping all over the place, irritating everyone with his constant forlorn sighing and whatnot. It's so ridiculous that I'd laugh, if I hadn't had to endure his soppy presence in my drawing room for the last three days in a row, because he has irritatingly decided that he needs to know if you like men who have dimples or not and I'm, apparently, the bloody expert on the matter!.
I told him to grow some nuts and tell you that he wants someone else in the room, whenever Mctavish is here, but he doesn't want to bring this issue to your attention, because he quite rightly guessed that you'd actually missed the whole point of the professor's puppy-dog looks.
It's amazing to see... That bloody auror actually knows you like the palm of his hand, doesn't he?”
He felt suddenly lightheaded. Like a man's whose past, whose future, had just cleared from under the heavy weight of the most terrible burden. He felt strangely disassociated too. Almost as if he couldn't believe that he wasn't dreaming. Or imagining this whole crazy scenario in a bout of paranoid madness.
“Mctavish has a crush on... me?” He was so appalled by the very concept that he uttered that question with a strangely timid squeak. Luc snorted, shook his dazzling blond head with obvious despair, and proceeded to tsk-tsk at him with truly infuriating superiority.
“OH!, Severus, Severus... my dear, dear, friend... you are a very bright man when it comes to all things sneaky and potions-related. You are a fountain of sheer genius when we talk about magical theory and even transfiguration. You are a paragon of excellence in the rarefied world of wizarding academia, but... you are the most ridiculous idiot when it comes to spotting a man who is, literally, gagging to be left alone with you in this very office for the rest of eternity!.
Why do you think Mctavish played the card of the poor, clueless, professor who is in desperate need of some quality guidance from his tall and aloof mentor?. He's been touching your elbow, your wrist, your bloody shoulder... with revolting regularity for the last two months, Severus!. Every time we all met to discuss your Internet project he found reasons to stay behind and even tried to secure a couple of private meetings with you, alleging that he was more involved with the study plan than Granger and me were...
Didn't you notice that woman's acidic digs to his every request to have a private word with you? Didn't you notice how she always took the seat directly beside you and forced me to take the other one? Didn't you see how she'd spill her tea, or drop her quill, going as far as to point out imaginary creepy crawlies in an obvious attempt at getting Mctavish to stop touching you, every single time that he so much as set his paws on you?”
He stared at Luc with wide-eyed incredulity.
“I assumed Hermione didn't like him for some reason. I knew that Harry had some sort of problem with him, but it never crossed my mind that it might be... jealousy.
How can this possibly be true? Have any of you actually bothered to look me in the face lately?. It's hard enough to believe that I might have managed to snare Harry's attention, but to go as far as insinuating that Mactavish has developed that kind of interest in me is... it's crazy, Luc!. Just... crazy!. They are both so...”
“Attractive? Good looking? Clever?... Yes, they are. They are both perfectly healthy hunks that many a gay man would quite gladly sell his mother to sink their greedy teeth into. And they both want you. Shocking... isn't it, Severus?.
I bet Evans is turning cartwheels in her grave right about now. Your father too. And that bastard, Klinius, with his whole idiotic band of hufflepuff groupies... Now he is a happily forgotten Quidditch has-been while you are... well, you are you. I bet he'd turn back in time and stop his pals from breaking your every bone, in retaliation for you having a crush on him, if someone only gave him a time-turner powerful enough to bring him back to our fourth year...”
He was ruffled by the obvious scorn dripping from the perfectly shaped lips of his lifelong friend.
“Do not mock me, Luc!”
Those words seemed to incense his companion beyond reason. They brought forth an unholy fire to that sharp, smoke-colored gaze that raked him from head to toes with a sort of infuriated rage.
“I'm honestly fed up with this nonsense about your looks, Severus. There's absolutely nothing wrong with them!”
He felt wronged and irrationally attacked. His chest eased forwards and his dark eyes shone like coals.
“Are you crazy? Look at me. LOOK AT ME, LUC!. I'm too thin, too tall, too pale!. My nose is too large and twisted to the left, from when that bastard, Potter, broke it in my third year. My teeth are crooked and tea-stained. My hair has been a laughing stock for as long as I've lived and my temper is like a cross between an enraged veela's and a half-crazed banshee's. I know you love me, my friend, but that is no excuse to become blind to my every fault. I am an absolutely non-starter, when it comes to either grace or beauty, and it's hard for me to imagine how it's possible for these two... youths... to be so blind as to consider me charming in any shape or form!”
The anger drained from Luc's shoulders as if it never had been and a hurtful look of pity took it's place.
“You are the one who is blind. So blind... You don't see all the things that make you, maybe not beautiful, no, but striking enough to be perfectly appealing to a certain type of person.
Yes, you are tall and thin... so what? Your body has the gracefulness of a dancer. You move gently, like a cat, and you do it in such way that it's impossible not to marvel at your elegance. Your skin is pale, that's true. But it's also almost luminescent and soft. It's only tainted at your fingertips and even that draws the eye to those long, artistic, hands of yours. Your hair could take some care, I agree, but it has a beautiful color. It's soft and it's length suits you, no matter what anyone else says. There's nothing wrong with it. Your eyes are beautiful, too. They are deep and dark, like those bottomless wishing wells from the old stories and your voice... your voice alone could enthrall the old Fae, Severus.
You've spent so long being surrounded by superficial idiots, who wouldn't be able to find true worth even it it smacked them on the face, that you've actually allowed yourself to believe their ridiculous claims. Anyone who'd throw away your affection, in order to get embroiled with a Lockhart lookalike, doesn't actually deserve you, anyway!”
He'd just opened his mouth to utter a most scathing retort when a sudden, sharply delivered, burst of wild clapping halted his effort. They both turned towards the fireplace to discover Harry's face in the middle of the green-tinted flames.
“I must say I wouldn't have managed to put all of that quite as well as you did, Malfoy” The little menace dared to say into the thick silence that followed, wrenching a loud and irritatingly satisfied bark of laughter from his friend's throat.
“How long have you been there, Harry?” Severus questioned warily and the look the child directed at him told him the answer before the boy himself did.
“Long enough to have learned that you've been hiding things from me on purpose, Severus”
“Why don't you join us, Mr. Potter? I find myself in need to ask a few questions about that particular issue and Severus here has decided to behave in a distressingly uncooperative way, I'm afraid”
A single beat of silence followed. The fire crackled as the head within it turned, once again, to stare straight at him.
“May I come in, Severus? I'm already here and I already know that you are having trouble with your magic. I did try to call your attention once or twice but you guys were so caught up in your discussion that you missed my every attempt at interrupting you”
There was something so satisfied, fleeting about Luc's clear colored gaze in that one second, that Severus became convinced that the blond had cast a notice-me-not spell over the fireplace. What he couldn't actually figure out was why the castle had allowed him that liberty...
His brow furrowed with annoyed exasperation and his hand rose to pinch the bridge of his nose in frustration. It had been years since the last time Luc had so blatantly played with his life.
“Fine!... Come in, then. I'm sure having you here has been part of the plan all along, whatever that plan might be... am I right Lucius?”
Luc had the grace to look chastised. He flinched visibly at both: Severus' harsh tone and his unusual choice to call him by that rarely used full name.
Harry's footsteps seemed to thunder around his whirling senses as the auror entered the room and he could perceive a sort of sadness clinging to the boy's every motion that revealed a great deal of disappointment. His mind blanked with the ashamed realization that, by hiding this latest debacle from him, he had failed Harry greatly. The gryffindor reached his side and a hand curled around his rigid shoulder in what he understood to be a generous attempt at trying to get his attention without upsetting him further.
“Severus?”
His name, spoken in that softly questioning tone, forced him to look sideways and upwards, straight into a twin set of shadowed emerald pools that were flashing with concern.
“Are you sure that you want to do this right now? You are looking really upset and I don't want to stress you any more than you already are...”
Those caring words brought back his courage. He blinked slowly and his face turned pale with pained dismay at the prospect of enduring the conversation that would no doubt ensue from here. His hand rose to grasp the boy's own digits with a sudden, irrational need to anchor himself to this one second in time. He crushed poor Harry's hand in a hold that must have been excruciatingly painful, earning himself not a word in offended denial of the comfort that he was voicelessly seeking, but a smile of reassurance and a gentle squeeze back.
“I'm sorry I didn't tell you, Harry. I honestly believe that there's nothing to say here past the disheartening admission that I... I have lost my magic.”
A thickly cushioned chair sailed across the room at the command of Luc's wand, settling right behind Harry in the next second.
“Don't you listen to this ridiculous drama king, Potter. He's so busy feeling sorry for himself that he can't see the wood for the trees, no matter how many times I helpfully point him in the right direction”
“And what would the right direction be, Mr. Malfoy? Hermione is of the opinion that I botched the essence of the oath, somehow. We've gone through my memories of it, time and time again, but the wording isn't ambiguous enough to have been twisted into a command to block Severus' magic. Furthermore... it's obvious that his magic isn't blocked. He has been using it lately, with varying degrees of success, and that alone points to the fact that it's both there and perfectly intact. We haven't been able to figure out what on Earth is going on and it's driving me up the wall!”
Luc's eyes shone with enthusiastic relish and his hands joined together at the fingertips in a gesture that he used whenever he had the upper hand.
“I believe your friend has the right idea, but is mistaken about what happened to the magic. I've found something else. Something that could possibly fit this scenario to the letter, if only I can ascertain a few things...
I need to make sure that I understand all aspects of what happened, but I don't really want to go over that tiresome avowal any longer. I want to move us beyond it. Back to the moment when you first decided to back out of your agreement, Severus.
Why, exactly, did you suddenly decide to fight off the vow? What did it do that alarmed you enough to ignore every dire warning drilled into your skull against committing such a foolish act?”
The question forced him to remember that one second when his despairing mind had first encountered the inexplicably loving nature of Harry's powerful magic. He'd been expecting pain and poisoned bitterness to come from a connexion that he'd believed had been forged in revenge. He'd been filled to the brim with warmth instead. Held in what he now recognized as a simple and straightforward manifestation of Harry's genuine affection for him and he'd panicked with the idea that the vow had been corrupted. Only... It hadn't been miscast at all, had it?.
Knowing what he now knew he could finally understand that Harry's intention had been to bring them closer all along. The boy had wanted to force him into a situation were he had to accept the help that the auror was so willing to give him. The vow had been a ploy to gain unchallenged access to him. Harry had wanted to have the freedom to protect him, care for him, shelter and look after him, bring him to safety... He'd demanded both obedience and secrecy, yes. But he'd done so in order to avoid others revealing the true nature of his own emotions towards Severus. He'd requested respect, companionship and the stipulation that there'd be open communication between them... None of that was harmful. None of it was bitter, angry, or dangerous in the slightest. Every single demand that the gryffindor had voiced had the same simple desire to... protect him... at it's core.
Of course the magic of the vow had been loving!. Of course it had enfolded him like a bond born of affection. It had always been a bond meant to grant him sanctuary and he fought it, tooth and nail, causing himself harm...
“I believed the magic had been corrupted at the time. I was expecting... pain... and when that didn't come I panicked. Harry's magic couldn't mask his benevolent intentions and I assumed... I assumed that it was twisting itself. I tried to break it off before it formed into something that he hadn't intended to create. I... I thought we were going to end up being trapped by the unwanted requirements of a link that had been cast in error.”
Luc's gray gaze sharpened with something very close to unholy satisfaction.
“But the spell wasn't warped, Severus. It had been cast in love, with the intention to protect you. It had been accepted by you, no matter how much trickery was involved in accomplishing that particular feat” Luc's words halted there long enough to allow him to shoot a truly frightening look towards Harry's flushed face. His gray eyes were hard, like swords, and his face had turned into the rigid mask that so easily displayed the very worst of his alluringly dark nature.
“You are a lucky man indeed, Potter. You messed with the very lives of both: my oldest friend and the child the gods have given me. I would have hunted you down, to the very doors of Hell itself, if something untoward had happened to either of them. I might still have to do that, do you understand? Severus, here, might be willing to forgive you, if you happen to be stupid enough to try hurting him now, but I'm afraid that my nature is that of a darker, more sinister breed. I am a Malfoy, after all. And Malfoys do not like it when other's go around breaking our... toys.”
“Luc!” His enraged remonstration didn't even seem to register with the other two. Harry's hand had now descended along the length of his own arm, curling around his wrist in order to hold his hand, almost in challenge. He had the actual boldness to interlock their fingers firmly, in a show meant to advertise obvious unity to their companion. Luc's eyes narrowed and his brows came together in a slight frown before his lips curved in a small, pleased smirk.
“And I dislike on principle anyone who considers Severus to be their toy, Malfoy. I also happen to have a very worrying tendency to lose my temper whenever I get upset. I'm mostly certain that you won't enjoy to be the cause of one of my infamous episodes...”
Severus' incredulous face turned sharply towards Harry. He could not actually believe that this was happening to him!. His breath froze and his eyes darkened with an absolutely appalled sense of... anger and he rose suddenly off his chair, dislodging his hand away from the auror's own, and walked crossly towards one of the tall windows in order to stare outside through peeved dark eyes.
“If you two don't stop playing these stupid games, right this second, I'm going to throw the both of you out of my office!. Am I making myself clear?” His incensed growl thundered around the office and he turned to glare at his companions with pure disgust.
Luc turned around in his chair and had the actual gall to wink infuriatingly at him with a delighted sort of inexplicable enthusiasm.
“Don't be like that Severus!. I needed to make this point when I had the chance. Who else is going to step in and murder Potter, if he messes you up, eh? Threatening me with office eviction, when I'm in the middle of delivering my menacing best-friend spiel for your benefit isn't very gracious of you. Don't worry too much about it, though. I'm feeling gracious enough to forgive you. I've been waiting to threaten a suitor of yours for so long that I feel as if I've just won the Quidditch World Cup all by myself!”
Harry broke into hysterical giggles at that moment and the whole ridiculous situation descended into utter chaos. Luc laughed too, and they both ignored his displeased and rigid figure by the window in order to enjoy their mirth in incomprehensible complicity. He stood stiffly apart, staring at them with appalled irritation. They were behaving like little children. He honestly had no idea about why on Earth he bothered with these two...
“Feel free to return to your senses at some point today, gentlemen. You may not have much to do, beyond driving me to distraction, but I must remind you that my time happens to be precious.”
A second later he heard Harry's soft sigh but he ignored that entirely and turned his enraged eyes towards the window once again. There was a snow battle being waged on the West field, in what appeared to be fourth versus fifth years, and he made a mental note to request some sort of soup to be served for dinner...
“So... we all agree that the intent of my magic was loving when I cast the oath. Don't we, Severus?”
Harry's question brought him out of his distracted thoughts and he brought his palm right out, placed it flat against the freezing-cold glass in front of him, and took a single deep breath.
“Your magic has always been loving when it comes to me, Harry. It shouldn't have been able to harm me, not even after I tried to resist it, because it was born to protect me. That's what every expert in magical theory will tell you: the intention of the wizard controls the magic... That's what makes the fact that I ended up being not only hurt, but also punished with a magical drain, so difficult to believe. Something happened to me. Something twisted that magic in such a way that the very nature of it was utterly corrupted, I can't think of any other explanation that makes sense...”
“You are forgetting the one thing that tilted everything out of control, Severus. There's something we all have mentioned, at one time or another, but everyone has ignored so far: You are Hogwarts' chosen headmaster, my friend, and you happened to be on school grounds when you agreed to swear that vow. Now there are two points that are extremely important here: the first one is that you were physically unable to cope with any sort of magical backlash at the time, due to your health. The second is that, when you started to fight off that oath, the castle immediately saw the vow's magic as a direct, magical attack against your person.
It was only after you mentioned that your ability to perform magic started to improve after your return to the castle, that I finally remembered how the school's own magic has always been rumored to become directly linked to the magic of it's headmasters. That's when I decided to go back to the history of the school. I attempted to study every account that I could find relating to the presence of a physically unfit headmaster on the grounds...”
Harry became suddenly interested. His upper body leaned slightly forwards, elbows propped on his knees and green eyes narrowed in what Severus assumed was his most intimidating Head Auror expression.
“Attempted?. What do you mean by that, Malfoy?. Surely you must have found dozens of entries. Dumbledore himself lived well past a hundred and fifty and I have it on good authority that some of Hogwarts' former headmasters have been veritable mummies by the time they've met their maker!”
Luc smiled with the kind of satisfaction that only a cat that has feasted on the fattest of all mice has any right to show.
“They were old, yes. But they weren't unfit. Severus is the first of Hogwarts' headmasters to have been harmed, during the actual course of his tenure, in a way that wasn't specifically prearranged in advance.“
Luc turned around then and the pale gray eyes that had seen him at his worst, but also had accompanied him during some of the happiest moments of his life, clashed with his own. There was something really strange within that look. Something somber. Something awed. Something that spoke of the fact that, whatever Luc had found out about the situation, it was unusual enough to have rattled him profoundly.
“What is it, Luc? What do you think happened to me?” He asked the question directly, with the kind of boldness that had been born not out of courage, no, but out of terror. Out of the crystal-clear understanding that his friend... his friend had finally found the answer to this riddle and that answer was, somehow, not as straightforward as Luc might have desired it to be...
“It's unclear to me why the school failed to protect you from Nagini's bite, Severus. You were Hogwarts' headmaster already by then and, since you were on school grounds when you were attacked, that snake should have never managed to come anywhere near you, according to my research...
I can only assume that it was your own desire to act as a bait, in those particular circumstances, that stayed the castle's own intrinsic reactions, thus it failed to protect you in a bid to allow the course of action that you had already agreed to follow beforehand to develop unchallenged. I believe Hogwarts' was counting on Dumbledore's plans for both, your own future and the outcome of the final battle, to actually deliver the greater good they promised.
The castle allowed you to come to harm and then kept you alive long enough for Draco to reach your side in time to save you. It also kept you tethered to itself, throughout your coma, no matter how far away you wandered from your own consciousness. It held onto you with something very close to guilt, I think, until you recovered completely and then it tried to overprotect you when it believed you to have encountered danger once again.
It is my belief that Hogwarts was trying to defend you from the backlash of the oath, while the vow itself was equality intent on protecting you from the power of the castle's intervention...
Then your panic escalated and you assumed that the magic was being corrupted even further and, deciding to throw caution to the wind, started to fight them both, instead of surrendering yourself to the magic. There was no chance for you then, Severus. Your weakened body couldn't cope with the stress of it all, even though the magical backlash was actually benevolent.
This is something Potter himself told me. It was confirmed by the healers at the time: you were drained due to an over-exposure to raw power, but you were never directly attacked by it. Not in any way. Your body was forced to shut all magical conduits down, because keeping them open would have killed you, but that was never the desired result that the magic had been seeking in the first place”
“So I've been turned off, like the faucet of a sink... It's what I've been trying to tell you. No matter how unintentionally it was actually accomplished the end result is still the same, Luc. My magic has been erased and now there's nothing left”
His own voice sounded worn out and distant to his ears. He felt cold down to his core. Adrift. Abandoned. His dark eyes obscured even further and he couldn't have looked directly at either of his companions at that moment for all the gold in Gringotts.
“No. Severus. That's what could have happened. What was happening, right until the point when you started convulsing in reaction to the magical overload. That's when Potter here decided to intervene. He tried to still the outpouring of power. I'm pretty sure he attempted to settle the oath, so that it'd be out of the way, didn't you Potter?”
Widened green eyes closed in what looked like pained distress and the boy's Adam apple bobbed up and down on his tense throat when he swallowed hard. Then his eyelids shot open and he stared straight into Severus' own eyes with ashen-faced recollection.
“I'd already caused you to go into a respiratory arrest a few days earlier. It was my very worst nightmare turned reality. I tried to stop it, but I couldn't!. Nothing was working. Nothing!. Your arm had broken and you fainted from the pain, then you started to shake in the throes of a magical storm... I could see the castle's power trying to wrestle with the oath's. I tried to dissolve the vow, but I couldn't do anything!. I... I started to scream. I can't even remember what I was shouting. I don't know what I did, or why it worked, Severus. I only know that it stopped.”
“You spoke parseltongue, Potter. That's what you did. It's the only thing that fits. You spoke in the language of one of the castle's founders and the magic responded, not to your words, but to your intentions.
You invoked one of the oldest bonds known to wizardkind and it worked because the vow had been born from love. It worked because the castle was trying to protect it's headmaster. It worked because Severus himself had been trying to protect you in turn, when he decided to start fighting the oath.
You invoked Salazar's Shield, my friend. And, when you did, you became Severus' magical guardian in the same way that a Patronus holds his caster's joy.
You are the key to Severus' power, Potter, and he won't recover it successfully until you release his magical core back into his own control”
Shocked silence followed Luc's bizarre announcement and he blinked with astounded disbelief. His knees threatened to fail him and he flopped against the window, behind him, trying to get the cold glass to ground him into reality.
“Salazar's Shield is a myth, Luc. Even if it could be casted, you'd need to be bloody Merlin to make it work...”
Elegant wide shoulders shrugged with the utter certainty of those who know they are correct, despite all indications to the contrary.
“Everyone's failure to recast the shield successfully is related to the fact that it must be invoked in parseltongue. The purity of the emotions necessary to power the spell-work have also helped turn it's recasting into a virtual impossibility, as it's very hard indeed to find not one, but two, participants who both share the same desire to... selflessly protect one another. I've found not a single indication to assume that this spell requires it's caster to be particularly strong in magical power, Severus. And while we are actually discussing the very interesting point of myth versus true historical data, allow me to remind you that The Deathly Hallows were also a myth, my friend, and yet they came out of their story book to help the Savior here kill the Dark Lord”
“Salazar's Shield? What in the bloody Hell is that? What's more... If you know what's wrong with Severus, and you know the way to fix it, then why aren't you guys jumping for joy and telling me the right charm to sort this out?”
Harry's puzzled barrage of questions forced the two slytherins to turn around and look at him with something akin to dazed wonder. They had grown up knowing every single legend there was to know about the founder of their House and they couldn't understand the fact that others hadn't.
“Salazar's Shield is a powerful spell that's rumored to have saved the lives of the Four Founders. There's a story about them having loved each other with a perfect, selfless love. The emotion was so pure in form, so lacking in greed, that it has been hailed as the force that built this castle. The four were like brothers and sisters to each other, they would have gone beyond The Veil for one another. Rumor has it that Hogwarts is built on what once was the lair of a Nundu. The Founders came here, drawn by the strength of the area's magic, and were attacked by the beast to the point where only Slytherin remained standing. He could have ran away, saved himself. There was no way he could rescue his companions and survive...
It all came down to the one moment when he had enough strength to cast one last spell. His companions expected him to dissapparate, but when he opened his mouth he screamed out something in Parseltongue. In the next second he reportedly became some sort of magical, human shield that protected his companions and himself. The strength of the spell was such that nothing could actually cross it: nor magic nor creature, nor death itself.
It's been said that his wish to protect his friends, combined with their equal fervent desire to see him safe, produced the kind of force that has remained unrivaled throughout history and a double-layered shield, born from selfless love, was the result. No one has ever managed to reproduce that spell. No one!. No one could even write it down, as it was originally cast in parseltongue, but everyone agrees on the same point:
This school was built here, in a region that thrums with a wild, rich power. It did flourish and grow, protected by the kind of wards that no one has ever managed to either break nor reproduce. Hogwarts was powerful beyond measure until the very day Slytherin decided to walk away, and then it just... remained. It can't grow any further but it can't diminish, either.
Salazar's Shield binds the magic of everyone being protected under it together, in such a way that they become each other's protectors in cases of dire need. You are holding onto Severus' reserves of energy, because he was the weakened partner when the spell was first invoked but tomorrow that situation might reverse, Potter...
As far I can see the shield was cast independently of the oath. It links you both in loving protection of one another. It can not be dissolved nor changed. It can not be denied, either. You'll belong together magically until the very day you die.”
Harry's eyebrows drew in obvious puzzlement.
“Magical belonging... that sounds kind of frightening, Malfoy. I though the magic was protective”
“It was. It is. You are linked in power only, in magic. You are linked in order to act as one another's defender. You can come to each other's aid, manipulate each other's levels of power to the best advantage of the weakest of the two. You can boost each other's magic whenever there's a real, mortal, threat against one of you.
This is a shield, Potter. A tool. It has the ability to keep you safe, yes, but only if you decide to use it. It can't force itself on you. You can ignore this particular aspect of your magic and nothing untoward would ever happen to either your health nor Severus'. But your power will stall. It'll never grow any further, it won't mature nor change. It'll remain just as it is forever, unless you embrace the shield completely. That's the reason why this castle can't expand beyond the limits it had already reached before the Founders split. Once Salazar rejected the others, the shield's power began to wane and their magic simply stalled. This link won't ever harm you, but once it's cast... it's binding, Potter. Severus' wand can't recognize him properly because your magic is obscuring his own essence. The growing closeness between you two, coupled with your constant presence around him and the slow recovery of his physical strength, has allowed some of his magic to become available to him. But you'll have to remove the shield completely, now that there's no actual danger threatening him, or his power will continue trying to submit itself to yours.”
Harry exhaled then, a deep and relieved sound that seemed to echo off the thick walls loudly.
“So Severus isn't my magical slave or something... is he? He'll have no reason to hate my guts after I remove this shield thing. He'll be back to normal and he'll be perfectly safe... Is that what you are telling me, Malfoy?”
Luc's eyes shone like hardened diamonds, his lips thinned and he turned around slightly to stare silently at him once more and Severus understood that, no matter how bizarre it might all sound to his own disbelieving ears, his friend was perfectly convinced that he was right.
“Yes, Potter. He'll be safe and he'll be free. He'll be nothing of yours, unless you purposely enter another bond together. The presence of the shield between you two will boost any other ties you try to establish. A simple promise will become an oath. An actual oath will become unbreakable. A simple marriage will result in a Soul-Bond...
I'll just give you the information and allow you both to decide what you want to become to one another at your own pace. For now, though, all you have to do is walk up to Severus and take his wand. Press it together against your own and cast Finite Contego* in parseltongue. If I'm right, which I most certainly am, then Severus' magic should be unlocked.”
Harry's green gaze searched his own. There was a soft light of hope filling the boy's eyes that managed to unfreeze his own paralyzed reactions. He eased away from the window and took a few steps closer, watching intently as the boy rose from his chair and began to approach him too. They came together a few steps away from Luc's own chair and, as he lifted his dark eyes, he found himself drowning into the beauty of Harry's verdant ones. He could hear nothing past the loud roar in his ears and he feared that he might faint in the next second with the terrified longing to believe that Luc might be correct.
When warm hands settled on his upper arms, in a gesture of comfort, his neck gave up and he dropped his aching forehead against Harry's strong shoulder. The moment hung, like a dew-drop from a leaf, spinning slowly around them. Holding them both together in a fragile web of hope. Bringing them both to a dazzled understanding of what they had, so unwittingly, become: they were each other's guardians. Each other's strength. They were each other's shelter...
Harry's hand touched his own, eventually. The boy held his trembling digits, guided them towards his own wand-holder and closed them around the handle of his wand. Then the auror dragged that very same loosely curled fist across the wide expanse of his young chest, sliding their entwined hands carefully towards his standard issued auror-wand-holder and they both drew that wand out together, too.
Their eyes held and their breath mingled when their wands began to thrum with that familiar, warm power that he'd always found comforting. Magic swirled around their sticks, passing from one into the other as if they both shared the same thread. One single core. Severus finally understood that this wasn't only Harry's magic, not any more... Their wands were actually responding to that unique union of powerfully affectionate energy that they had created together on that day. It was a magic that they had already used in perfect synchrony before now, a magic that had always made him feel complete. At home. Utterly safe...
“Shheesjia Shusshue Liashhiass”
He could not understand the words his companion uttered, but he felt their effect immediately. His wand jolted within his hold, alive and welcoming in the truest sense for the very first time since he'd fought that blasted vow. His eyes widened when he felt his palm tingle with the familiar pinprick of his own energy and he took a single step back. They drew apart from one another. His gaze dropping down, in wonder, to stare towards his wand-hand.
He was trembling so hard that his arm wavered visibly as he lifted it slowly and pointed it straight in front of himself. He could feel every single fiber of that beloved length of Birch respond to his every movement and he felt a wild sort of perfectly pure elation rise within him. He was back!... He was in possession of that thing that he'd always valued above all else once more. He was a wizard, once again!. He was back to being special. Back to being more than his father had ever been, back to being his mother's son, back to himself. He was back to having undisputed control of his own destiny...
“Expecto Patronum!” He invoked the hardest charm of them all with the kind of certainty that could only have brought him triumph and his eyes shone like a starless expanse of midnight when she thundered from his wand and across his office, like the very ghost of joy. Lily... His Lily... The very embodiment of all that he had loved and lost in life was here, in this very office, beside him once again. She was perfect. She was beautiful. She was his... But she wasn't everything he wanted anymore...
His gaze rose then to clash with Harry's green one and he felt freer in that one second than he'd felt in a long time.
“I loved her, Harry. I loved her so much... and she will always embody my happiness in this small way. But she... she deserves to be freed from the emotions that have kept her tethered to me for two long decades. She deserves release... She deserves to have the love I once professed her wane and change to suit the passing of time. She deserves to dwell only in my past. To have no place in my present, or my future. She deserves to be finally relegated into a box holding fond memories and I... I deserve to give myself the chance to finally, genuinely, forget her...”
TBC...
A/N: Cambok* was a medieval sport, apparently very similar to Lacrosse.
Finite Contego* roughly translates as to remove all protections.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-07-04 01:48 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-07-13 04:08 pm (UTC)Spanish is my mother tongue, as you've probably guessed by now, and mi abuela used to say the same as yours: 'cada cabeza es un mundo' to which mi abuelo never failed to respond: "y cada corazon un universo."
I tried so very hard to portray Severus here as 'the head' while Harry was 'the heart' that it was a beautiful surprise to read your review and realize that someone out there had been having the very same thoughts that were circling my head when I wrote this story.
I sincerely hope that you finish the fic and that the end doesn't disappoint you. Thanks, once again, for taking the time to both read it so far and send me another of your beautiful and thoughtful comments. :D
Finished it...Loved it
Date: 2015-07-14 01:19 am (UTC)Re: Finished it...Loved it
Date: 2015-07-14 05:53 pm (UTC)