Claudius was solidly a good fellow. After he left, Harry read the scrolls he'd left behind and been shocked that he'd been on a first name basis with the former Emperor of Rome. That was a strange day.
"Right then." Might as well get down to business. The more he thinks about it, it's not so much that he's surprise that Snape wants to know about ending the war, but that the Marauders didn't. "The most important thing to know is that Riddle isn't dead. His body has fallen, but given enough time, unicorn blood, and sacrifice, he can and does return. Do you know what a horcrux is?"
Huh. Well. Of course Dumbledore would have told the boy about the Dark Lord's true origins. (Severus had found out from other sources; partially his own investigation and then later confirmed at the source but-- he tries not to think about it, how the master he should hate was kinder to him than the other.)
That's not what gives him pause. Horcrux does. "Yes," he says, and closes his eyes for a moment to banish a strange look that settles briefly on his face. Pained, almost mournful-- it's gone in a heartbeat, and he's looking at Harry again like it didn't happen. More than knowing what it is in theory he knows without having to be told that it's possible, just as he knows immediately upon hearing the word where this is going. He knows more than anyone what Voldemort is capable of with a soul and imagining him without it is.. something else.
as the words fall out of his mouth and he can feel the weight of them. A palpable heaviness settles around them as he continues to speak. "I know where they all can be found and how to destroy them without, ah, without too great a cost."
Although, finding a basilisk is always a little tricky.
For the moment, Harry does not mention the final, unintentional horcrux. It's self-serving, but as much as he would trust the Snape he knew, he's not entirely sure that it wouldn't be easier for everyone, more expedient, to just let Harry-as-a-toddler have an accident.
A zero-approval gambit means that reasonable doubt is cast on him from all sides; the fact that Harry conceals something is either proof that the measures Snape has taken - will take - are successful in keeping his triple agent cover, or proof that he's not ignorant of how far Dumbledore will go. Severus has dedicated the rest of his life to ensure the young man sitting across from him gets to grow up to where he is now, and he wouldn't for a heartbeat consider drowning a toddler to spare a war, simply because of whose son he is.
Perhaps, in time, he'll tell Snape the rest, but for now he's not yet that trusting. He didn't tell the Marauders either, but they hadn't wanted to know any of it. 'It wasn't their war'. He's trying (and failing) not to nurse a grudge over that.
"First and most potent, his old diary. You must not read it or write in it. It's sentient and will possess anyone around it. It is most capable of consuming another's soul or will." He then continues to list off the rest, what they look like, where they're most likely found, and how they were destroyed.
It'll be their war soon, and how spectacularly foolish they'll feel - or not. Severus would be hard-pressed to entertain the notion that any Gryffindor, any Marauder in particular, were capable of such humility. The students of other houses were protected during the first stages of the war, but not Slytherins. Not Severus. It's been his war since before he ever set foot in Hogwarts. From both sides of the line in the sand.
He listens, almost unblinking, silent for the duration. He won't forget a single word or detail so long as his memory remains unmeddled with, but he's read accounts of persons returning home and coming back with gaps in their mind, of selective overlapping amnesia. Perhaps this is a pointless conversation but so long as there's a chance, he has to take it.
When it's over, Severus sits back in his chair and for a moment stares at a point in space over Harry's head. When he sits forward again, elbows on his knees, it's with a frustrated exhale. It could be about any number or things or all of those things but-- "Regulus was an idiot."
Yeah, sure, fine. He'll go with that. There's no heat to the comment because it's not true, and that Severus doesn't mean it quite like that is obvious. He hadn't known, for sure, how his friend had gone. It feels closer than it should be and he blames Sirius, having done that doubletake when he arrived.
Anyway. "It'll be taken care of to the best of my ability." If he remembers.
The recitation of horcruxes takes something out of him and leaves him unsettled. After years of secrecy, it's hard to believe that anyone will actually listen to him and accept his words at face value.
"Thank you. I, umm, there's more that might be good for you to know, but it will go against Dumbledore's wishes. Knowing where to strike is good and something he's probably already searching for, but there are things he wants to keep hidden but ..." Harry closes his eyes, hangs his head, and rubs a hand through his hair. Even now, it's still so hard to go against what he thinks the Headmaster would've wanted. "But I think it's good that someone, anyone else knows."
Severus is preaching to the choir, though he doesn't know it. His tone of voice isn't comforting, because Severus doesn't know how to do that - wouldn't even if he did - but it's quieter than a reprimand. He respects Dumbledore, but he doesn't trust him. He's afraid of him a little, he resents him a lot, and part of him is coming around to like the man, but even affection is worlds away from trust. Severus will remember forever that Albus failed to protect Lily because he refused to consider his pet students might be anything but perfect.
"This is the wizard who let Gellert Grindelwald terrorize Europe for almost fifty years because he was sad over it."
"I've seen enough of his memories and...and I was there, at the end, to know that well enough." There are many things he considers telling Snape, but he will not divulge Dumbledore's death unless absolutely necessary. It would be cruel and an unnecessary burden. "But, what's important is that there's a woman named Umbridge. Avoid her. Blacklist her from the Ministry. Do whatever you feel is appropriate. She is responsible for some of the worst atrocities during the war. She's not a Death Eater, but a bureaucrat and a sadist."
She inspires a hot, ugly anger low in his belly that he's able to control, but only just. The back of his hand twitches and he does not rub at the scars there.
What times we live in. Harry Potter sparing Severus Snape's feelings and throwing a Ministry hack under a bus. Severus tilts his head just a little, observing Harry, but if he notices anything he doesn't comment on it. Something is bothering him personally, he thinks, which brings his thoughts around to a matter he's been avoiding. They're coming close to a point where several questions should go. What do you know of me personally? How did the war end? But Severus isn't going to ask those things. He knows with calm certainty that he won't survive the war and that even if he does, his life after will be meaningless and unimportant. That Harry is full-grown is assurance enough and the uncanny way Harry mirrors himself is unsettling enough - he doesn't want to know how much he knows. It is easier and safer to offer a half-blind confidence and sort it out later. Severus has always asked that Dumbledore cover up any connection he had to Lily, and maybe he kept his word, maybe the way Harry recognizes and trusts him is only related to his status as a spy and an authority figure.
But maybe it's not. And he doesn't want to know.
"Fine." He doesn't care about bureaucratic blood purists, but maybe Lucius would find being asked to ruin somebody's career as a favor an entertaining break from the boredom of early parenthood.
There are so many other things he could say, but he doesn't know what would be useful, what could be valuable. Should he tell Snape that there's a basilisk under the school but that he'll need a Parselmouth to get to it?
"One last thing, and I hope you never need to use it, but back home. If you need to find my alternate, I was kept by the Dursleys, utterly unaware of magic or anything important." There's some careful word choice there; like an old piece of baggage, he was 'kept', not raised or housed or cared for. "Other than that, I can't think of anything right now."
Quietly. He knows - knew - and can't do anything about it because it's what Dumbledore wants and because the protection of blood magic (that he put there begging Voldemort not to kill Lily), despite the sort of people he knows Petunia and Vernon to be. A bit like his own father, even if nowhere near that bad. Fleetingly there are sparks of empathy when he thinks of it but the embers are most often overtaken by another fire, one of resentment - one that flickers back to life whenever he looks at Harry sideways and thinks of how much he resembles James.
He almost says I take it Petunia never improves but what if Harry doesn't know that he grew up with his mother, and what if he does. So he doesn't say anything.
Harry knows that he won't resemble James for much longer. In a few more years, he'll have outlived his father and if he's very fortunate and works exceptionally hard, he might grow into being his own man. Mulling this over, he has a sudden, exceptionally poor idea.
"Although, if you're willing and you find yourself with time on your hands, I'm a glutton for punishment. What I mean is, back home, I'm ...they've made me an auror, but I never finished school and didn't really have proper training for a lot of it."
For a long moment Severus is quiet and still, and the media library feels as though it might shudder with the sound of a pin dropping while he stares at Harry with an expression that seems to telegraph without words (or Legilimency) Are you out of your fucking mind.
"..I'll think about it."
It is perhaps a tactically sound idea. If anything.
He probably is, but if so, the condition is nothing new.
"Thank you, again. I really appreciate that you asked and that you're willing to listen." He should stop there, but Harry has never exactly been good when it comes to impulse control. "And didn't give me a split lip and a black eye like when I've tried this with the others."
This conversation has abruptly become even more awkward than it already was. Severus doesn't know how to respond to that. Somehow it's more surprising than anything else has been said so far - or maybe it's just the contrast. By all prophetic accounts this should be the golden child of Gryffindor sitting before him, one of the boys by blood and inheritance. He can easily see Black and Potter shirking responsibility but-- that? To one of their own, it's unexpected. And he's not sure if he believes it.
Finally: "Other." A small correction. "It seems James Potter is no longer aboard."
"I'd heard. I've been here almost a year and I've seen the whole set of them come and go." Harry could understand their reasons, but he doesn't agree with or respect them. Now, in retrospect, he supposes he could have been a bit gentler approaching them, couched his words, or tried to be their friend first, but it all would've felt dishonest.
"Sirius is still here. I haven't told him that you are."
The whole set of them makes him wonder if that means Pettigrew and if he ended up dead or-- Lily.
He pushes it from his mind.
"Black is quite aware," Severus says, wry and not entirely kind humor twisting his voice. "The terms of our current cease-fire are vague and unlikely to be kept indefinitely, but I have better things to do than contribute to Sirius Black's inflated notions of self-importance by paying further attention to him."
"Temporary truces seem to be the done thing here." It's taken him a few months, but he's almost mended fences with Sirius and he'd hate to have to go back on that and take sides. As a gesture of almost friendship, he's asked the other wizard to help him learn how to be an animagus. (Nothing can go wrong with this plan.)
"I suppose that's it then. Unless you've anything else?"
Honestly, this has gone on a bit longer than necessary; Severus didn't expect that weird bit of sharing, but he did say he's been here for a bloody year. Maybe he just hasn't had the opportunity to tell anyone about getting his nose broke by his father and godfather and needed to wordvomit at someone, anyone, even the man who his mother didn't choose. Merlin only knows what that'll accomplish. Surely there's someone on this ship more well-equipped for feelings.
Severus stands up and nods once, then turns to leave. Harry knows where to find him if anything else comes up.
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"Right then." Might as well get down to business. The more he thinks about it, it's not so much that he's surprise that Snape wants to know about ending the war, but that the Marauders didn't. "The most important thing to know is that Riddle isn't dead. His body has fallen, but given enough time, unicorn blood, and sacrifice, he can and does return. Do you know what a horcrux is?"
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That's not what gives him pause. Horcrux does. "Yes," he says, and closes his eyes for a moment to banish a strange look that settles briefly on his face. Pained, almost mournful-- it's gone in a heartbeat, and he's looking at Harry again like it didn't happen. More than knowing what it is in theory he knows without having to be told that it's possible, just as he knows immediately upon hearing the word where this is going. He knows more than anyone what Voldemort is capable of with a soul and imagining him without it is.. something else.
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as the words fall out of his mouth and he can feel the weight of them. A palpable heaviness settles around them as he continues to speak. "I know where they all can be found and how to destroy them without, ah, without too great a cost."
Although, finding a basilisk is always a little tricky.
For the moment, Harry does not mention the final, unintentional horcrux. It's self-serving, but as much as he would trust the Snape he knew, he's not entirely sure that it wouldn't be easier for everyone, more expedient, to just let Harry-as-a-toddler have an accident.
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But that's just him. Perhaps they both know it.
"Well then, let's hear it."
He doesn't need to take notes. He'll remember.
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"First and most potent, his old diary. You must not read it or write in it. It's sentient and will possess anyone around it. It is most capable of consuming another's soul or will." He then continues to list off the rest, what they look like, where they're most likely found, and how they were destroyed.
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He listens, almost unblinking, silent for the duration. He won't forget a single word or detail so long as his memory remains unmeddled with, but he's read accounts of persons returning home and coming back with gaps in their mind, of selective overlapping amnesia. Perhaps this is a pointless conversation but so long as there's a chance, he has to take it.
When it's over, Severus sits back in his chair and for a moment stares at a point in space over Harry's head. When he sits forward again, elbows on his knees, it's with a frustrated exhale. It could be about any number or things or all of those things but-- "Regulus was an idiot."
Yeah, sure, fine. He'll go with that. There's no heat to the comment because it's not true, and that Severus doesn't mean it quite like that is obvious. He hadn't known, for sure, how his friend had gone. It feels closer than it should be and he blames Sirius, having done that doubletake when he arrived.
Anyway. "It'll be taken care of to the best of my ability." If he remembers.
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"Thank you. I, umm, there's more that might be good for you to know, but it will go against Dumbledore's wishes. Knowing where to strike is good and something he's probably already searching for, but there are things he wants to keep hidden but ..." Harry closes his eyes, hangs his head, and rubs a hand through his hair. Even now, it's still so hard to go against what he thinks the Headmaster would've wanted. "But I think it's good that someone, anyone else knows."
That the knowledge is dangerous goes unsaid.
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Severus is preaching to the choir, though he doesn't know it. His tone of voice isn't comforting, because Severus doesn't know how to do that - wouldn't even if he did - but it's quieter than a reprimand. He respects Dumbledore, but he doesn't trust him. He's afraid of him a little, he resents him a lot, and part of him is coming around to like the man, but even affection is worlds away from trust. Severus will remember forever that Albus failed to protect Lily because he refused to consider his pet students might be anything but perfect.
"This is the wizard who let Gellert Grindelwald terrorize Europe for almost fifty years because he was sad over it."
(You're a dick, Snape.)
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"I've seen enough of his memories and...and I was there, at the end, to know that well enough." There are many things he considers telling Snape, but he will not divulge Dumbledore's death unless absolutely necessary. It would be cruel and an unnecessary burden. "But, what's important is that there's a woman named Umbridge. Avoid her. Blacklist her from the Ministry. Do whatever you feel is appropriate. She is responsible for some of the worst atrocities during the war. She's not a Death Eater, but a bureaucrat and a sadist."
She inspires a hot, ugly anger low in his belly that he's able to control, but only just. The back of his hand twitches and he does not rub at the scars there.
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But maybe it's not. And he doesn't want to know.
"Fine." He doesn't care about bureaucratic blood purists, but maybe Lucius would find being asked to ruin somebody's career as a favor an entertaining break from the boredom of early parenthood.
"Anything else? For home or here."
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"One last thing, and I hope you never need to use it, but back home. If you need to find my alternate, I was kept by the Dursleys, utterly unaware of magic or anything important." There's some careful word choice there; like an old piece of baggage, he was 'kept', not raised or housed or cared for. "Other than that, I can't think of anything right now."
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Quietly. He knows - knew - and can't do anything about it because it's what Dumbledore wants and because the protection of blood magic (that he put there begging Voldemort not to kill Lily), despite the sort of people he knows Petunia and Vernon to be. A bit like his own father, even if nowhere near that bad. Fleetingly there are sparks of empathy when he thinks of it but the embers are most often overtaken by another fire, one of resentment - one that flickers back to life whenever he looks at Harry sideways and thinks of how much he resembles James.
He almost says I take it Petunia never improves but what if Harry doesn't know that he grew up with his mother, and what if he does. So he doesn't say anything.
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Harry knows that he won't resemble James for much longer. In a few more years, he'll have outlived his father and if he's very fortunate and works exceptionally hard, he might grow into being his own man. Mulling this over, he has a sudden, exceptionally poor idea.
"Although, if you're willing and you find yourself with time on your hands, I'm a glutton for punishment. What I mean is, back home, I'm ...they've made me an auror, but I never finished school and didn't really have proper training for a lot of it."
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"..I'll think about it."
It is perhaps a tactically sound idea. If anything.
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"Thank you, again. I really appreciate that you asked and that you're willing to listen." He should stop there, but Harry has never exactly been good when it comes to impulse control. "And didn't give me a split lip and a black eye like when I've tried this with the others."
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Finally: "Other." A small correction. "It seems James Potter is no longer aboard."
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"Sirius is still here. I haven't told him that you are."
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He pushes it from his mind.
"Black is quite aware," Severus says, wry and not entirely kind humor twisting his voice. "The terms of our current cease-fire are vague and unlikely to be kept indefinitely, but I have better things to do than contribute to Sirius Black's inflated notions of self-importance by paying further attention to him."
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"I suppose that's it then. Unless you've anything else?"
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"No. That's all."
Honestly, this has gone on a bit longer than necessary; Severus didn't expect that weird bit of sharing, but he did say he's been here for a bloody year. Maybe he just hasn't had the opportunity to tell anyone about getting his nose broke by his father and godfather and needed to wordvomit at someone, anyone, even the man who his mother didn't choose. Merlin only knows what that'll accomplish. Surely there's someone on this ship more well-equipped for feelings.
Severus stands up and nods once, then turns to leave. Harry knows where to find him if anything else comes up.