June 16th
Severus was packing, taking all of the clothes from his wardrobe to toss in a bag. Severus told Potter they would relocate to Invisibility Way, and they would. Potter and Theodore were in their room, packing and arguing over where Potter would place his snake once it was returned from William Weasley and Fleur Delacour.
Severus could hear Potter's voice as he grumbled about something, likely pouting once more that 'Stevie' had taken a liking to William.
It nearly brought a smile to Severus's face to hear Harry complaining and whining once more.
Potter held up his end of the bargain Severus made out of desperation. He did not discuss his daily sessions with Lupin, though Severus began to see undeniable changes in him.
A spark of life when he received his summer training schedule from the Arrows. A small grin when Slytherin won the house cup for the fifth year in a row. And, perhaps the most proof that Severus had that Potter was returning to life, was when he was called to Filius' office the day before the last day of school.
Apparently, Potter hexed a student who asked Miss Bones where her arm went.
Severus chastised his ward lightly and shook his head disapprovingly, as he was expected to do, while he celebrated internally. It was the first time Potter had used magic since the battle, as far as Severus knew.
It was a process, and nothing that would be solved quickly, but Severus was merely relieved to know that Potter no longer resembled an inferi.
A blessing that Severus attributed to Susan Bones' survival and, as much as it pained him to admit, through the ministrations of Remus Lupin.
With that Potter finally beginning to return to the land of living, Severus truly did need to move them.
Severus pulled a book off his bookshelf, his personal journal of potions notes that he had edited and added to since he was a mere boy, and a loosely tucked parchment fell from it.
Sev,
If you're reading this then I did not return from the battle.
I wish I had time to write pages and pages about how much you meant to me, how much I value our friendship, and how much I appreciate getting to be a part of the family you've built here, but I don't. I need to come help you and our family and friends instead.
BUT- there's something you should know.
In my favorite place, in my favorite item, is something you must know about now that I'm gone.
The password is my usual.
Your friend for always,
Barty
With a sharp breath, Severus mechanically pocketed Barty's note as he strode from his bedroom to the library Barty built in the basement.
Severus had no idea what information Barty believed Severus needed to know, but he clearly found it to be important enough to delay arriving at the battle.
There was a heavy weight on Severus's chest as he descended the basement stairs. Twice, Severus had to clear the grief from his mind so he could focus on the task left to him.
Barty's favorite place:
The library.
Severus carefully looked over the bookshelves until he found Barty's favorite book:
The Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe.
The hardback copy, as Barty considered paperbacks to be too flimsy to carry around with him.
"What self respecting Ravenclaw hasn't read The Raven?" Barty laughed. The rising sun behind the Great Lake caused his straw hair glow warmly."'Plus isn't it obvious that the heart in his story was a curse cast by a poltergeist?"
Focus.
Severus cleared his throat and tapped the book with his wand.
He intoned Barty's 'usual', "Scotch on the rocks. Make it a double."
"What's it say about me that 'the usual' for me is the same thing my father drinks?" Barty asked morosely after placing their drink orders at their favorite pub.
"Nothing good I'm sure," Severus replied tightly as he sipped the bourbon that his own father preferred.
Severus watched as the cover of the book shimmered and disappeared, leaving the inside of the book hollow and empty. It was a unique charm that Barty himself invented in his fifth year of school. The hollow space in the book revealed a hidden cache of assorted items, alongside a scroll tied with a thick green ribbon.
If you're reading this, then I am dead. I'm sorry to leave this burden on your shoulders, but there are a few things you need to know...
Severus read about Bartemius Crouch Junior's greatest discovery and his secret adventures once...
Twice...
Three times...
As he reread it the tenth time, the words unchanging and forever burned in his mind, Severus lifted a heavy locket from the book. The thick golden chain was wrapped securely around an equally heavy ornate ring. Severus immediately dropped the scroll to the floor.
Horcruxes.
And not simply one, but seven, if Barty's research and theories were correct.
Which Severus was certain they were.
It was disgusting, insane, and more terrible than could be adequately put in to words; which fit the Dark Lords ideals quite nicely.
Regulus Black was the first to discover them and attempted to destroy one, sacrificing his life in the process.
Harry Potter unwittingly destroyed one at a mere twelve years of age with a Goblin forged sword infused with Basilisk venom.
Barty Crouch Junior experimented on the ring, though he destroyed the locket, fulfilling Regulus' final task, with a simply cast curse.
Frederick, quite unknowingly to Barty, destroyed one in the serpent Nagini during the battle.
And suddenly it was meant to be Severus' job to find two more, a diadem and a goblet. Suddenly, it was his job to destroy a total of four more before the death blow was dealt to the Dark Lord.
Severus waved his wand and silently warded the room as the horror of the situation filled him.
Since the battle, Severus had been holding himself together by sheer force of will. He kept going while he treated the wounded, while Potter unraveled beside him, while Bones fought for her life. Severus pushed through the endless meetings with the Minister and the aurors, and through the steady stream of students he ferried to Lupin's office for trauma counseling.
Even through the funeral of Severus's last school friend, held on the first day of summer, a day he and Barty used to dread, Severus was able to hold it together.
It had been a slight balm to Severus' grief to see so many turn out at the service he could not advertise or announce.
Black and Lupin came, along with half a dozen of Lupin's pack, werewolves who claimed Barty as a friend. Potter's allies - Abbott, Ritters, and the older Weasley brothers - c arrived alongside Fleur Delacour. Many of the boys' friends arrived to show their support; Granger, Lovegood, Bones, Ronald, Draco, and Frederick huddled around Harry supportively.
Nymphadora was a rather surprising arrival. She arrived with Lupin and Black, with her pink hair and her traditional black robes and remained solemn and uncharacteristically quiet while she stood unwaveringly by Severus' side.
Severus had remained stoic as the body of his friend was lowered in the ground, the peaceful plot chosen beneath the crooked branches of an oak tree in the Cokeworth Cemetary. Severus had not shed a tear while he comforted Theodore with his grave eyes and his blank mask. And Severus did not allow his emotions to overcome him as he calmed Potter when he ranted and raged and the fire in his eyes swore vengeance for their loss.
Severus Snape did not fall apart.
But then?
Then it all became too much, too much to expect of one man.
Finally, with his privacy magically ensured, Severus could allow himself to go to pieces.
Severus screamed, cursed, cried out. He threw Barty's beloved books across the room in an absolute fit of emotional despair.
Everything.
That was what the Dark Lord and the war wanted to take from him.
Regulus. Lily. Barty.
Harry.
Everything.
Harry, for he was Harry, not Potter.
His Harry; his ward, his son.
That would be the price of defeating the Dark Lord.
One life for what was certain to be millions.
However, it was not simply any one life that was required -
It was Harry's life.
Harry housed a portion of the Dark Lord's soul inside of him. An innocuous shard, unnoticed by either party, that kept the Dark Lord alive.
Severus folded in on himself, his chest heaving and the pain accumulating too quickly, too fully.
Cutting the beating heart from his chest would be less painful.
I wish there was another explanation for the link between their minds, but this is it.
Harry, as the vessel hosting the Horcrux, would have to be 'destroyed beyond magical repair'.
Barty had found no spell, no curse, no ritual that could separate the horcrux from the host.
"No," Severus moaned, sinking to the floor and burying his head in his hands.
Severus swore he would keep him alive, he swore to help him to truly live. He swore to Albus that Harry would live a long and happy life exceeding even his advanced years with his lifespan.
...Albus.
Albus knew.
"The child was marked for death the night his parents died."
"He will not survive the conflict with Voldemort."
Albus did not intend for Harry to live. Albus already counted on his death.
He even attempted to rush it along during the battle.
Albus must have known, he must have always known, what was required in order for the Dark Lord to be vanquished.
Susan Bones would have to duel Severus for the honor of ending Albus' life.
How dare he keep it from him? The information changed everything.
It changed nothing.
"Neither can live while the other survives."
Had two minds, two lives, two souls, ever been so intricately tangled as Harry and the Dark Lord were?
"No, no, no," Severus murmured repeatedly in a frenzied denial.
It was a pointless denial.
Barty was correct.
Of course he was.
Barty is- was- a genius.
Tom Riddle's ring, discovered and stolen by Barty.
Hufflepuff's Goblet, hidden in the vault Bellatrix Lestrange once owned.
Rowena Ravenclaw's diadem, hidden somewhere in the world.
And Harry.
If they wished to see the end of the Dark Lord, if they wished to save countless innocent lives, those were the things that had to be destroyed.
Eleven year old Harry, smirking up at him from a small and scarred face in the center of a run down room at an inn. His eyes suspiciously amused as Severus offered to buy him lunch.
"Don't get attached, Professor."
To destroy Harry would destroy Severus as well.
Severus truly had gotten attached beyond any logical reasoning.
And he could not do it.
He would not.
Severus would find a way around it.
It mattered not at all that Barty had failed to find a way around it, Severus Snape would.
And if he couldn't? If he failed to find a way to keep Harry alive while dispatching of the Dark Lord and saving millions of lives and the wizarding world's way of life?
Then Severus would throw himself on the pyre in the hope that he would be reunited with his child in an afterlife he scarcely deserved.
Knock, knock.
At once, Severus hastily shoved the contents of Barty's discovery back inside the hollow book and sealed it shut with a precise tap of his wand to the spine.
Severus cleared the grief off his face, though his eyes must have still been burning, as he unlocked the door.
"Hot chocolate?" Harry stood in the doorway, his own eyes frantically distressed as he peeked over Severus' shoulder and eyed the destroyed suite. Severus looked at Harry's hands and saw that he carried two large mugs filled with cocoa and topped with fluffy white marshmallows.
"I have a pain reliever and whiskey too," Harry offered quietly. "I wasn't sure what you'd want."
None of them.
All of them.
"Sit," Severus gestured for Harry to join him on the floor, which the child —
Merlin. He was still a child. Only a boy stuck fulfilling the role of a general.
Harry was just a boy stuck fulfilling the role of a martyr.
— slowly did.
"Thank you, Harry," Severus said as he accepted the mug and watched Harry pull a large glass bottle of alcohol and a small vial of pain reliever from his pocket to place them on the floor beside him.
Harry gave him a weak smile as he looked sadly around Barty's suite.
"I'm going to kill Timmy, Sev," Harry swore viciously. "He doesn't get to take anyone else from us. Never again."
Severus felt his heart shatter in to a million pieces at Harry's vow.
Nobody else would be taken from Harry; but Severus was a different story.
"Harry."
Harry looked over at him and Severus felt a staggering wave of grief threatening to overwhelm him as those solemnly sad green eyes, so typically filled with mischief and vigilance, met his.
"I love you," Severus said with as much calm as he could. "I could not love you more if you were born of my own seed. You truly are the son I never thought I wanted, and could now never live without. I believe - you should know that. I love you."
Harry looked startled, though not displeased, at Severus's impulsive disclosure.
"Er, I love you too," Harry gave him a crooked grin that broke yet another piece of Severus' shattered heart. "Can I have some of the whiskey?"
Severus let out a wet chuckle, a hysterical sound that he quickly ended lest he panic his child, and summoned two glasses.
"To finishing what Barty started," Harry said, raising his glass as he referenced the duel with the Dark Lord.
"To finishing what Barty started."
Severus finished his glass in one loud swallow as he desperately wished that he and Harry were not discussing two different tasks.