Walk the Shadows

'I don't want to hear it. Just . . .' Remus-Snape put a hand over his face and pinched the bridge of his nose, head ducked slightly as if his neck hurt, and the gesture was so Snape that Harry was jolted when Remus' voice said, 'Just stay put and do as you're told for a bloody second. Stay right here. I need a moment . . .' With that, he strode away, through a doorway in the far wall, leaving Harry alone.

Again.

That's when the shaking started.

---

In the basement of the Prince ancestral home, Severus leant against the door of his potions lab and squeezed his eyes shut, trying to get a grip on his temper before he faced Harry again. In the instant of deciding where to Apparate, he'd concentrated on here, where he had not set foot in several years, instead of going directly to Hogwarts. At Hogwarts, they'd still have to get through the gate, and if Lucius had followed them . . . Well. It had been much faster to ram through the outer door and then reinforce the wards here than it would have been to race to the castle with a distraught and murderous teenager on his hands.

Damn, damn, damn, damn, DAMN!

With each repetition, Severus slammed the back of his head on the solid oak door, as if could possibly knock some sense into his head. Remus' head. Whatever.

The exercise proved futile.

Except that it gave him a headache.

And very likely a concussion.

Stupid, stupid, stupid child! Of all the harebrained, idiotic, self-destructive, nonsensical ways to get himself caught up in a legal and ethical nightmare! Not to mention the many and varied ways Harry would have been emotionally fucked up for life, if he'd actually managed to work up the requisite desire to cast the damned spell. Severus knew Harry didn't have it him to be a killer; he'd spent enough time in the boy's head to understand that. For Merlin's sake, the boy barely believed he deserved better than the Muggles who'd made a cock up of his childhood. And most days, Severus was fairly sure Harry believed he did deserve every second of the misery they'd put him through.

How he expected to live with himself if he took another's life, even if it was Malfoy . . .

Severus' mind snapped immediately to the prophecy Dumbledore had seen fit to share with Harry on the night the last of his real family died. Either must die at the hand of the other, for neither can live while the other survives.

Fuck.

Was this what truly troubled Harry about that damned prophecy? That he would have to kill or be killed, and that Harry knew he wouldn't be the one who could kill?

He suddenly understood Harry's reluctance to discuss anything to do with life after school, or after Voldemort's demise, or even after this next term, as if the boy knew he were living on borrowed time. And, he could, only at this moment, completely understand Harry's frantic attempt to cast the Unforgivable on Malfoy, for that is what it really was, after all. However asinine, Harry had made the attempt to show himself that he could do it. In Harry's mind, Severus now realized, if he couldn't kill, he was no more than a walking corpse.

Fuck, indeed.

A second later, and the sudden end of the Polyjuice's duration hit him with the force of a Stunner. He had to use the wall for support to keep from falling as he resumed his own shape. Hands narrowed and fingers lengthened, his nose grew sharply in profile and his hair darkened appreciably until he was finally himself. Yet, still with a headache.

Ach, hell. Severus Accio'd a pain potion from his stores and gulped it down to treat the blooming pain behind his eyes before he headed back upstairs. How could he have been so blind?

---

An eternity passed as, dizzy and breathless, Harry sat on the cold, marbled floor of the entryway and stared at his hands. They held a wand, yew, eleven inches, springy, with a basilisk fang core. Yew like His. He stared at his hands, small, narrow, agile. Good for snitch catching. And stared at the wand he'd tried to kill with, the wand in these hands.

With a lurch, his stomach dropped and the world narrowed to . . .

. . . glass the color of blood leaving trails across the stained, dark floor . . .

. . . and now the dark was all around him, and Malfoy's hot breath was in his ear and hands grabbed his hips hard enough to bruise . . .

. . . and his hands tilted the yew wand toward him, aimed the killing blow at his own eye . . .

. . . and the smell of sweat and blood and semen and the sweet sting of cologne filled his nose and mouth and made him retch over and over . . .

. . . and the fang's poison hurtled through his veins, burning his blood, and he had to let it out, let it all out . . .

. . . and Bellatrix and Voldemort laughed and laughed and laughed . . .

'Potter!' someone yelled and grabbed his shoulder and shook, hard.

The world jerked back into focus, and he peered into Snape's face. The man didn't let go of his shoulders, but said, 'Breathe, Harry. Slowly now. In. Out. In. Out. Good. Keep going, in. Out . . .'

Harry clung to Snape's arms and shook his head, trembling so hard he could hardly feel his fingers anymore,