Harry leaned across the table. This was new. 'Really? Did Dumbledore tell you?'
'Not exactly.'
'Well then?'
Snape sighed and folded his hands together on the table. He looked Harry in the eyes and Harry saw sadness and a touch of apprehension? there. 'I want there to be no lies between us. I will tell you something now that will upset you, I have no doubt. But I would rather we speak about it now, than you learn the truth from someone else. I am not proud of what I did, and I . . . I truly regret what resulted from . . . Well.' He looked away for a long moment, and Harry held his breath.
'I overheard Sybil's prophecy. When it was first made. But only the first part, which was why the Dark Lord was so anxious to hear the rest.'
Oh my god.
'You . . . YOU told him? You're the one who gave him the prophecy?' Harry voice had almost reached screeching proportions.
'Harry, I—'
'SHUT UP! You dare talk to me about protecting me and being my guardian, and you're the one who got my parents killed?!' Harry was trembling in rage, and he heard the rattling of potion bottles and bookcases all around him as he got angrier and angrier . . .
Snape's face hardened. 'It was not only I, if you'll remember. Peter Pettigrew had a fair amount to do with it, as well.'
'But there wouldn't have been any secret for him to protect, if you hadn't told!'
'That's not exactly true. I admit, the Dark Lord might not have known as quickly if I had not been in the Hog's Head that day, but I imagine he would have heard it from Peter's mouth, soon enough.'
'You imagine! Oh, that's a relief!'
'Potter!' Snape glared at him. 'I was wrong. I admit it. The words I spoke to the Dark Lord about a prophecy I'd heard only a line or two from resulted in the death of my best friend. Don't you think I am sorry for that?'
'I don't know what you're sorry for any more. You said . . .' Angry tears came to Harry's eyes and he scrubbed at them before they could fall. 'You said you want to protect me, but what happened at . . . at the manor . . . I . . . no one . . .' He gulped a breath, but it wouldn't go down right and stuck in his throat. His ears were buzzing oddly, and his face felt hot. Someone touched his hand, and he jerked it back. 'Can't . . .' he gasped, still unable to get air.
'Breathe, Harry,' a soft voice said, and he knew, in the abstract, that it was Snape, but he didn't care. 'Come on. One breath. In. Out.'
Harry wheezed a half-gasp and struggled for more. His head felt light, like he was floating. 'Help . . .'
The hand took his again. This time he gripped the slender fingers and held on tight, trying desperately to breathe. 'Harry, I'm here, all right? Squeeze my hand. Take a breath for me, you can do it.'
On his chest lay a bag of bricks, pressing down and collapsing his lungs. So heavy. Too heavy. Snape hadn't protected him. No one had, not at Topsham. Not from Voldemort. Tears ran down his cheeks, and suddenly he was gazing into dark worried eyes. 'Let me in, Harry,' Snape said. 'I can help.'
Despite his doubts, Harry jerked a nod, and the next moment, a whispered 'Legilimens,' let Snape into his mind.
XOXOXOXOXXOXOOXOXOXXOXOXO
A swirl of images flash past Severus as he wades through Potter's mind, looking for a way to calm him. . . . . Harry can't see, but slashes as from an invisible whip lay open the skin on his bare chest, spraying warm blood across his hands and arms. Though he was writhing from Cruciatus already, he was trying to resist it by biting his lip, or the inside of his cheek. Both are in shreds. But the blood is too much – is the spell ripping him apart at last? – and he screams. In the dark haze of his blind agony, he realizes the feel of magic in the room has changed. Snape is awake! He can't . . . he can't know. It's not his fault! Snape must never know how much Harry is hurt, must never think it's his fault, so Harry quietens his cries and holds the ripping, tearing pain inside, as tight as he can, but he can't breathe anymore. . . .
'No!' Severus yells and pushes the memory away, only to be caught by the next . . . His odious cousin sits on his chest and punches him over and over in the face, so blood fills his mouth and nose. Three other boys hold Harry's arms down, or sit on his legs, and one of them has a handful of spiders he plans to cram down Harry's throat.
Severus has to go deeper. . . . A door slams on a little boy, leaving him in darkness with the thick, suffocating smell of spilt chemicals, of bleach and ammonia mixed together. The boy's eyes burn and he pounds on the tiny slanted door of his cupboard, pleading in a voice hoarse with coughing to please be let out. Once he is reduced to scratching at the door, his hands are bloody and he can no longer see. . . .
Shoving through the door, Severus emerges into the open air of a hallway, and then, outside at last, to a memory of sunshine on a clear autumn day. Warm puffs of air mist in front of the boy's mouth and he sucks them back in, blows them out again, laughing at the sound and sight of his own breath.
This is one of the only happy memories Severus has seen or even heard of from Potter's childhood, and he will use it to get the boy to relax and breathe. Using soft tones, and a gentle hand, he stands beside the boy and breathes with him, smiling down at a Harry perhaps seven or eight years old, laughing along at their antics, and encouraging the memory. He lets it take over the whole of the boy's mind. Breathe. In. Out. Draw the mist in . . . breathe it out.
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXXOXOXOXOX
It took a long time. For the span of a heartbeat or two, after he left Harry's mind, Severus was sure it had been too long, that the boy had suffered oxygen deprivation and was dead, or worse. The rational part of his brain reminded him that was impossible, that the moment Harry passed out, his panic attack would have ended and his body would have regained control of his breathing. But fear has never been rational.
