Walk the Shadows

or if there was any trouble with . . . other students.'

Like Malfoy, Harry thought, and had to fight a sudden bout of nausea. He stayed quiet for a while, thinking some more, then said, 'You want to hear the rest?'

Snape's eyes narrowed briefly before he rested his palms flat on the table. 'Of the prophecy, I assume?'

Harry nodded.

'Very well. It shouldn't hurt now, as the Dark Lord will no longer be able to pull it from my mind at a meeting.'

'Is that why he never told you?'

'That is the reason the Headmaster gave me.'

Harry heard what Snape didn't say, that the Headmaster might have been just making up an excuse. Regardless, he told Snape the whole thing, as he'd memorized it, having gone over it in his head so many times he could say it in his sleep. He lay particular emphasis on the line, 'Either must die at the hand of the other, for neither can live while the other survives,' and watched Snape's face.

Unfortunately, the only tell showed that the man was getting angry. 'The Headmaster told you that?'

'Yes, sir.'

'When?'

'The night we came back from the Department of Mysteries.'

There was a stunned silence. Then, in an almost whisper, 'The night Black was killed.'

Harry swallowed down a lump and made himself nod, not trusting himself to speak.

Snape's face was as pale as Sir Nicholas', but the fire in his dark eyes roared to life. 'That . . . bastard. He didn't think you'd already been through enough that night?' Gaping at the professor, Harry actually leaned back in his chair as the man gesticulated wildly. 'I cannot believe his nerve. Telling a child he has to become—'

'I'm not a child!' Harry interrupted. 'And I wanted to know the prophecy. He hid it – my purpose – from me for so long . . . The orb got destroyed in the Department of Mysteries, and I thought it was lost, and then he showed me, with Professor Trelawney and all. He's got it pensieved.'

'I know that,' Snape snarled. 'I just think it completely inappropriate to have dropped this in your lap when you were already grieving for the mutt.'

Remembering the mess he'd made of Dumbledore's office, he said, 'Well, er, I had a few minutes to vent before he told me.'

'Oh?'

'I might have trashed his office. A bit.'

Snape made a sound suspiciously like a snort and his eyebrows both climbed toward his hairline.

'I was angry.'

'I see.'

'At him.'

'Obviously.'

'I still haven't apologized.'

'We will rectify that shortly.' Snape paused, and his lip did that twitchy thing. 'In the meantime, I believe I've found another word for our lists. Perhaps under the heading, What Not to Call the Headmaster in His Own School if One Is Hoping to Remain Employed.'

Nodding a little, though he was surprised, again, at Snape's dry humor, Harry bit his lip. What did Snape think about it all now, he wondered. Did he understand why Harry didn't think very much about life after Hogwarts? Or why he hadn't fought back like he should have, against his Uncle? Or the others . . . After all, when a person knew they were going to die, it changed an awful lot about how they treated life.

'What is it, Harry?'

Jerking his thoughts away from his musings, he decided to just ask. 'I've thought about it a lot, the prophecy? And, do you think it really means that I'll have to kill him or be killed?'

For a long moment, Harry thought maybe Snape wouldn't answer, that he would just stare at Harry forever like that, looking faintly nonplussed. But then he said, 'Is that what you think?'

Harry nodded again. 'And so does Dumbledore. I think. That's why he didn't want to tell me why I'm here earlier, when I was just a kid. He didn't want me to know I'd have to be a murderer, or, you know, die.'

Snape sighed and peered at his hands. They gripped each other rather tightly, and his knuckles were bone white. Harry wasn't sure what tell that was. 'That's not your purpose, Harry,' he said at last.

'Sorry?'

'Killing the Dark Lord, fulfilling the prophecy, all that rot. That is not your purpose.'

'Sure it is. It's what I'm still alive for, right? After my Mum and Dad died, I mean. And now, especially, since Wormtail used my blood in the ritual that brought him back. I'm the only one who can kill him.'

'That may be, but it is Not. Your. Purpose.' Snape gave him a cold, calculating look. 'You are fifteen years--'

'Sixteen.'