When Patterns Are Broken

“I have visited the Lestranges’ vault only once,” Griphook said. “On that occasion I was told to place inside it the false sword. It is one of the most ancient chambers. The oldest wizarding families store their treasures at the deepest level, where the vaults are largest and best protected.”

Harry tapped his pen idly. They were in one of the sitting rooms in Nott Manor, plotting their break-in. 

“We can either Imperius a Lestrange, polyjuice as one, or find someone else from an old family,” Harry said. “My idea was to sneak in behind someone going to their vault of their own volition.”

Griphook picked up a raw chunk of meat, mulling the idea over. They still had boar left over from Yule.

Griphook had drawn from memory a map of Gringotts’ deepest passageways. Harry hadn’t spent much time with him, but he soon realized Griphook had no actual qualms with hurting people on the way in or out of Gringotts. In fact, he relished the idea.

Harry didn’t enjoy hurting people, he saw it as a tool, a means to an end. Maybe he would feel better about himself if he did enjoy it, but rejected the kind of person that would turn him into. 

His path was grisly, brutal, and inescapable. He couldn’t ask Voldemort to play nice, roll over and die. He couldn’t expect people who had followed Voldemort out of Hogwarts and into Azkaban, crushing anyone and anything that impeded his rise to domination, to willingly divulge their secrets. 

Breaking into Gringotts was a comparatively victimless crime. However much Griphook was indifferent to the idea, Harry hoped no one would get hurt. 

“They know Bellatrix is missing,” Harry said, stirring cream into his coffee, watching as it diffused in swirls. Light spreading through the darkness. It was very symbolic. “I heard Narcissa say as much.”

Sirius still wanted to join in the break-in. Harry couldn’t see how he would fit. 

“I can do a very convincing cackle,” Sirius said, grinning. "I've had years of practice."

“We’ll need someone outside to come in after us if we get trapped, or caught,” Harry said. “You can use the polyjuice for that. Knock someone out and take their hair.”

Theo was holed up in the library, and had been for several days. Harry hadn’t spoken to him much, and it was putting him on edge. There was something haunted about how Theo looked, and he knew it wasn’t because they’d recently killed his father. If anything, that was weight off his shoulders. 

“Me and Griphook can fit easily under the cloak,” Harry said, setting his spoon aside. “All we need is the right time.”

Harry and Griphook sat next to a stall, Gringotts in plain view. It was early morning, and hardly anyone was out. More shops were boarded up, and Harry had seen a few new places dedicated to dark arts. He was dead curious to see what that meant. Cursed objects? Illegal potion ingredients? Rare books? Or maybe they didn’t mean dark in the same way he thought of it, as the types of magic looked down upon either by Ministry restrictions, biases, or social aversion, or magic that required something from the caster. Their emotions, their blood, a sacrifice. It was too broad, too nebulous a term. From what Harry had observed of Voldemort’s people, they typically meant things used to hurt people, to the exclusion of other uses. He didn’t think they knew what dark arts were either. They just called themselves dark witches and wizards to sound sinister. 

There were a number of people sleeping on the street, too, many inebriated or moaning in pain, with visible injuries. People begging passersby for coins, insisting they were really witches and wizards. These were the people the Order had been unable to help, or who refused their help, confident their faked ancestries would hold water with the Ministry. People who had lost their wands, jobs, homes, spouses, children.

He couldn’t save everyone. Harry had been told that a million times. And he wasn’t responsible for everyone either. He knew that. It would be hard to convince these people on the street that someone wanted to help them, that the offer was authentic, to move them into shelters where they could be healed and regularly fed. It was doubly hard to do so behind the Ministry’s back. Maybe they could pose as Snatchers and fake arrests? Drag them off. For their own good.

Griphook’s hand tightened on his arm. “That’s Travers,” he hissed into Harry’s ear. 

“I know,” Harry whispered back. “He killed Marlene McKinnon. She was friends with my mum.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Griphook said. “He’s from an old family. Pureblood. Their vault is in the depths.”

“Get on,” Harry said, turning his back to Griphook. The goblin slid his arms around Harry’s neck, living up to his name and nearly strangling Harry with his grip. There had been some debate as to whether Griphook would ride piggyback or be cradled in Harry’s arms like a baby. The former was determined to be slightly more dignified, though neither were happy with the arrangement. Sirius’ suggestion of a baby björn was summarily rejected. 

Harry cast charms to silence them, muffle his footsteps, conceal any words they spoke. Two wizards flanked the bank’s front steps, replacing the goblin guards. They held long, thin, golden rods they waved over the patrons. Probity Probes, Harry knew. He Confunded both of them just as Travers passed.

“How crude,” Travers said. 

“One moment, sir,” one of the guards said, raising his probe.

Harry froze. Griphook’s arms were like a vice. 

Travers looked down at the guard. “You’ve just done that. Are you, perhaps, unaware of who I am?”

“Yeah, you’ve just checked him, Marius,” the other guard said. 

Travers turned up his nose and continued, and Harry released his breath. 

They passed two goblins stood beside the silver inner doors. Harry glanced at the poem, the warning to those who attempted what he was now attempting. 

That first day, his eleventh birthday, was burned into his memory. Learning that magic was real, that he was magic, that there was an escape from the monotony of Little Whinging, the virulence of the Dursleys. A place he could make friends, where his parents were heroes and not unemployed drunks, filled with purpose, a bright future. A better future. 

It was all smoke and mirrors. Mere puff. 

You’d be mad to try and rob it, Hagrid had told him. Harry laughed to himself. Maybe he was mad. Maybe one had to be mad to be a wizard, to have a dark lord banging around in his head, to do the things he had done, and all he planned to do. If he was mad, at least he was in good company. 

He followed Travers to the long counter where goblins sat on stools awaiting customers. Travers headed for an older goblin, who was examining a thick gold coin through a loupe. 

“Leprechaun,” he concluded, tossing the worthless coin aside. 

Travers stepped forward. 

“Master Travers!” the goblin said, startled. “Dear me! How…how may I help you today?”

“I wish to enter my vault,” Travers said drolly. “As if my presence here did not make that evident.”

The old goblin recoiled. Other goblins peered from their stations.

“You have…identification?” the goblin asked. 

Travers sighed wearily. “Will my wand suffice?”

“Of course, sir,” the goblin said, taking the proffered magical stick. “This seems in good order.” 

The old goblin returned the wand, then clapped his hands, summoning a younger goblin. 

“I shall need the clankers,” the older one said. The younger dashed away, returning with a jangling leather bag. 

“Good, good!” the older one said, taking the bag. “So, if you will follow me, Master Travers.”

The old goblin hopped down, reappearing at the end of the counter. Sighing, Travers followed him, Harry close behind, through one of the number of doors that led away from the main lobby. They walked down a stone passage lined with torches.

“We need Bogrod to control the cart,” Griphook breathed to him. “I no longer have the authority.”

Harry nodded, watching as Bogrod whistled. A little cart emerged from the darkness and stopped in front of him. As Bogrod and Travers climbed in, Harry hastened forward, muttering a sticking spell to attach himself to the back of the cart. It was immensely uncomfortable, and he hoped it would be a short ride. 

The cart jerked and began to move, picking up speed. The edge cut into Harry’s fingers, and Griphook clutched him tighter, but the sticking charm held. 

Then the cart reached the first turn. 

It was a horrible, painful, nightmarish rollercoaster, rocking them back and forth, twisting, hurtling ever deeper underground. His teeth rattled in his head, and he held his wand as if his life depended on it. It often did. 

The cart took a hairpin turn at speed, and Harry had barely any time to notice the waterfall they approached. The Thief’s Downfall, as Griphook unnecessarily hissed in his ear. Harry held on tighter, but Bogrod waved his hand and the water parted for them. 

“Apologies, sir!” Bogrod said to Travers. “Gringotts has taken additional steps to guard her treasures.”

Travers frowned in distaste, but before he could respond the cart shuddered to a halt. 

Harry carefully detached himself, following Bogrod and Travers to his vault. They rounded a corner and came across a gigantic dragon blocking their path. Harry stared at the dragon, appalled at what had been done to the creature. Her scales were pale, and falling out as if diseased. Her eyes were milky white, and the way she moved her head showed that she was at best partially blind. Her legs were cuffed with heavy irons, driven into the stone behind her. She was a Ukrainian Ironbelly, frail, weak, and furious. 

Harry would talk to Sirius about finding a new bank. 

Bograd took out a small, metal instrument and shook it at the dragon. She reeled back, crying in fear. Bogrod advanced, Travers close behind. Harry kept his eyes on the poor, terrified dragon. He wanted to do something for her, but setting her free would give it all away. He had to leave her. 

Harry cleared his mind. He had a vault to break into, a horcrux to retrieve, a bargain to fulfill. The dragon was just another sacrifice on that path. 

The clankers rang harshly against the cave walls. The dragon roared at them, too well-trained—Harry didn’t dwell on what kind of training—to spew fire at them. It was a terrible thing to behold, a dragon beaten into submission, a guard dog that was so easily evaded. It was pointless. This whole setup was pointless. 

Leaving the dragon behind, Harry watched Bogrod place his hand against a vault door. The wood melted away, and Travers stepped in. 

“Imperio,” Harry whispered, ordering Bogrod to shut Travers in. The door rematerialized. Harry next ordered him to open the Lestrange vault. 

Bogrod placed his hand on the door, and Harry ordered him to the side. Harry paused at the entrance of the Lestrange vault, taking in all in.

“We need to hurry,” Griphook said, but Harry was already casting spells. 

“Geminio and Flagrante,” he said. “Annoying, but easily dealt with. I know the counters.”

“What is it that you seek?” Griphook asked, looking indifferently at the piles of gold, jeweled goblets, silver armor, mounted heads of bizarre creatures, rugs, skins, flasks, skulls…

“Hufflepuff’s Cup,” Harry said, frowning as he cast the countercurses across all of the Lestrange treasure. It was an exhausting use of magic, but he didn’t want to be burned alive and buried in a mountain of gold. “It’s likely on prominent display.”

“Up there,” Griphook said, pointing. It was at the very top of a shelf. 

Harry walked up and kicked the shelf, trying to knock the cup off. He watched it wobble. 

“Really?” he said, kicking the shelf again. “Couldn’t even stick it down? Diffindo.”

The shelf cracked, and the cup toppled down. Harry let it fall to the ground, then pulled out a cloth to wrap it in. He could feel his scar prickling as he looked it over. It was the real thing. 

“Let’s go,” Harry said. “Hopefully Travers hasn’t noticed anything.”

They left the Lestrange vault, and Harry tucked his prize away. Using the Imperius, he ordered Bogrod to close it again, then release Travers with the excuse that closing the vault door behind him was an additional security measure.

The trip back up was worse than on the way down, but they got out, Harry limping from cramped legs, arms feeling like noodles. It was all laughably easy, only one Unforgivable curse required. 

“The sword,” Griphook demanded. 

“Yeah, I’ll give it to you, let me apparate us.”

Harry landed them outside of Nott Manor, removing his cloak and letting Griphook down. 

“Impossible,” Harry said, shaking his head. “You’re lucky most witches and wizards are too incompetent to viably do what we just did.”

Griphook narrowed his eyes at him. “The sword.”

“I know, I know,” Harry said. “Kreacher?”

The elf appeared with the sword and handed it over to Griphook. The goblin ran his hands lovingly over it. 

“You can stay here if you’d like,” Harry said. “Or we can find another place, or you can set off on your own.”

Griphook was too distracted to pay attention to him, so Harry left him standing in the garden with his new sword, and went home, wondering if he had needed the goblin at all.

Harry looked at his collection of ruined artifacts. Salazar Slytherin’s locket. Rowena Ravenclaw’s diadem. Helga Hufflepuff’s cup, recently punctured with a basilisk fang. It had put up less of a fight than the others, for all the trouble it was to find it. 

He had lined them up on the kitchen table.

"This should be it," Harry said. "He should be mortal.”

"There's only one way to test that," Sirius said. "Anyone ought to be able to kill him now."

Harry nodded, brow furrowed. The prophecy said it had to be him. Was he putting too much faith in it? It was true, anyone could have found and destroyed the horcruxes. Dumbledore. Regulus. A niffler.

He kept coming back to that snitch. The words he had said to open it. 

Harry looked at Theo, who stared at the three former horcruxes as if he could melt them with the power of his mind. Theo hadn't been joining them for meals lately, and he spent more and more time in isolation. Harry missed him. It felt like living with a ghost, and not the nearly headless or perverted toilet kind. Harry felt like he was losing Theo, and he didn't know why or how to stop it.

Riddle was still abroad. There was no need to chase him across the world when they already knew where the end of his journey was. They trusted Harry would sense when Riddle found Grindelwald, as he had when Riddle found Gregorovitch. He had sent a message via Phineas to Snape, asking to be contacted immediately if Riddle entered Hogwarts grounds. Neville had the Map and his mirror. Harry had studied, trained, talked about it endlessly. He had done everything he could in his short life to prepare for this final confrontation.

Harry sat on his bed, knowing the only thing left was to wait.

There was a knock on the door, and Theo slipped in. The door shut decisively behind him.

"I need to tell you something," Theo said.

Harry's heart began to race. Was Theo moving out? Leaving him? Did he need more space? Less? Was it something Harry had done? Didn't do?

Harry swallowed. "What is it? I know something's going on with you."

Theo looked at him, not moving from the door. Harry patted a spot next to himself, and with a jerk Theo started forward, moving robotically across the room. Harry watched him, struck by the absence of Theo's sullen grace.

Theo sat next to him, at a small distance Harry desperately wished to bridge. He didn't understand what was going on.

"Please talk to me, Theo. Was it something I did?"

"No," Theo said faintly, closing his eyes.

Harry slowly reached for his hand, unnaturally hesitant. 

"No," Theo said, looking at Harry with shadowed eyes. "Not something you did. Something you have to do."

Harry frowned, "Kill Riddle? That's the only thing I have to do, and even that's open to debate."

Theo's breath hitched, and Harry watched, horrified, as his eyes began to water.

"Harry…"

"What is it? Tell me!"

Theo winced, and Harry's heart cracked at the expression.

"I know why Dumbledore expected you to die," Theo whispered, closing his eyes again. "You're…"

Harry wrapped his arms around Theo, holding him close.

"I'm…I…I can't…"

"Theo," Harry murmured, stroking his back. "It's okay."

"It's not," Theo said, swallowing painfully. "Harry…you're a horcrux."

Theo knew everything about Harry. It was one of his life goals, ever since he had seen a messy-haired boy staring in awe at a thestral. Such a small moment had set the course for the rest of his life.

The message on the snitch had tormented him for months. Why did Dumbledore think Harry would die? How was it related to defeating Voldemort?

The horcruxes, they knew, had to be destroyed. The soul containers. It was a sort of death. Theo was skeptical of Nagini being a horcrux herself, but Harry had killed her. Theo had seen the snake lying dead in an old woman's bedroom. So he put her out of his mind, focusing on finding Hufflepuff's Cup and making sure Harry had every advantage when he finally faced Voldemort.

But then they had captured Bellatrix.

She had said Nagini still lived.

Theo had witnessed the killing. He heard Harry cast the Killing Curse for the first time, had seen its fatal green light strike the massive snake, had seen the life fade from her lidless eyes, her unmoving body, Harry wracked with pain from Voldemort's fury at discovering his beloved snake dead.

Nagini was dead.

Bellatrix believed she wasn't.

Nagini was a horcrux.

Or had been, until Harry killed her.

Theo ran through every possibility he could conceive of. Voldemort getting a new snake. Voldemort making Nagini an inferi. Voldemort resurrecting her by other means. Bellatrix being mistaken.

But, if she wasn't, and the snake lived, and Harry's death was integral to Voldemort's defeat, that only left Theo with one conclusion.

Harry was a horcrux.

Theo wanted to deny it. Dumbledore was deluded. How could Voldemort accidentally create a horcrux? The process of making even one was long and complex, it wasn't something that sporadically happened.

But Harry could sense Voldemort’s thoughts and feelings. He viscerally experienced them himself. He was Voldemort in those moments. The other horcruxes reacted to him, his scar reacted to them. Voldemort had tried to possess him through this connection, much like he possessed Nagini, much like Harry had possessed Nagini.

The parseltongue.

The twin wands.

That Harry's soul, his mind, had been so thoroughly invaded by Voldemort, was repugnant. 

Theo spent all of his time trying to determine how it happened, why it happened, what it meant. Books failed him, research failed him. No one seemed to know much about souls, nor pieces of souls. The only way Theo knew of extracting a soul was with a dementor, and he doubted they would discriminate between a partial soul and a whole one. Theo couldn't even know if they were discrete. Was the soul piece fully integrated with Harry? Was it attached in some manner, and could therefore be detached? If Nagini was a horcrux, if Nagini lived…perhaps.

If Harry was a horcrux, then Voldemort's remorse would…it could destroy them both. Was that Dumbledore's plan? Mutual destruction?

Theo would rather live in a world with Voldemort than a world without Harry.

But there was the prophecy. The prophecy driving Voldemort to kill Harry. A bloodthirsty regime that sent thousands into hiding. How long could they keep it up? How long until Voldemort's influence spread?

There had to be some other way. Theo would find it.

Harry was silent. He had listened to Theo's explanation. It made sense. He had gone over the things Harry had avoided thinking about, their implications.

Harry had seen death. His earliest memory featured him getting hit with the Killing Curse. Maybe he was fated to die young. Maybe his whole life—his parents dying, his life with the Dursleys, Sirius in Azkaban, the difficulties at school, the lack of training, withholding key information, Dumbledore letting him get attacked, harassed, dragged through the mud—maybe it had been all some scheme to guide him to that moment, to letting Voldemort kill him. To make him the kind of person who would be a martyr.

Dumbledore thought it was love that would defeat Voldemort. Just like Harry's mother had loved him enough to die for him. Was he meant to love the entire world enough to die for it? To take out one self-proclaimed dark lord? Getting rid of Voldemort wouldn't solve their world's problems. He was a symptom, a cancerous growth Dumbledore himself had prodded into its current size, forever replicating itself in other violent malcontents.

Harry held onto Theo, eyes finding the Resurrection Stone on his dresser. That gift made sense now. Walk willingly to the gallows, Harry, escorted by the ghosts of your parents.

"Neither can live while the other survives," Harry said, breaking the silence. "If someone kills him now, he will just be a wraith again. He'll possess someone else, find all his horcruxes are missing, and start thinking about what our connection actually means. Or he could possess me straight away. As long as I live, he can't die."

"You're not going to die," Theo said. "If the Nagini theory is correct, you can survive another Killing Curse. It's his signature spell. He'll think using it on you is important, as it failed the first time. He wants to prove himself. He told you that in the graveyard."

“Sirius suggested sticking him in an Egyptian tomb,” Harry said. “We’d have to keep him immobilized. Draught of Living Death? I’m not even sure he’s human enough for potions to affect him, though. And there’s no guarantee someone won’t find him. Maybe that cave?”

Harry took a shaky breath. “We could have been planning this for months. For years. Dumbledore must have suspected I was a horcrux from the off. At least from second year, after the diary. There could be contingencies in place! How to trap wraiths, rituals to extract horcruxes without destroying the container. Now all the rest are gone and we have nothing to test!”

Harry clenched his fists together. “Destroying the container. I’m the container. So Dumbledore orchestrated these events to culminate with my destruction.” He looked back to the Resurrection Stone. “I hate him. I hate him almost as much as I hate Riddle. Love,” Harry scoffed. “I love you. I would die for you. I’ve killed for you, and I’d do it again. You, Sirius, Andromeda, Tonks, Kreacher, Hedwig…maybe not the portraits, they aren’t exactly alive…”

He glanced at Theo. “You aren’t planning to reenact my mum’s sacrifice, are you?”

Theo looked off to the side. “It crossed my mind, but I dismissed it. It would only start things over again. Him a wraith, you with some minimal protection against him.”

“Good,” Harry said. “I don’t want people dying for me if I’m meant to die anyway.”

He stood up. “We need to know if Nagini is still alive. We both know I killed her. If she survived that, it suggests I can survive another Killing Curse. That bloody snake could be anywhere. If I’ve only destroyed the bit of Riddle’s soul in her, and that was what connected them the way it connects me to him, then he’ll know she’s no longer a horcrux. Unless he tries to make her one again.” He sighed. “He doesn’t have time for the ritual. He’s still running around looking for Grindelwald.”

“Dumbledore’s portrait,” Theo said. “And Snape. He may know if Nagini is still alive.”

“Right,” Harry said. “We’ll go talk to Snape. Maybe we’ll get some answers.”

Harry stepped out into the fourth floor corridor. The school was empty, vacated for the Easter holidays. Theo rode on his shoulder as a bird, tilting his head. However accommodating the cloak was with its size, it was still awkward to walk with someone else under it. 

Harry made his way through the castle, moving past gossiping portraits and drifting ghosts, glad he didn’t come across any living people. 

The gargoyle once again stood open. He rode silently to the office, casting homenum revelio and glad it only picked up one person. It wouldn’t do for Snape to set up an ambush now. 

Theo transformed back to human, and Harry left him the cloak. The door opened silently to his knock. He walked in to find Snape standing next to a Pensieve, watching him. 

“Is Nagini alive?” Harry asked. 

Snape glowered at him. “Why do you ask?”

“It’s a yes or no question,” Harry said. “I can tell you that a lot depends on whether she's alive.”

Snape waited for a moment, then said, “I saw her briefly late last year.”

“When?” Harry asked. 

Snape pursed his lips in irritation. “At the end of October. We were called into a meeting before the Dark Lord returned abroad.”

Harry nodded stiffly. “He’s keeping her with him, then?”

Snape narrowed his eyes. “How do you know this?”

Harry looked at the Pensieve, then at Dumbledore’s portrait. “I don’t know if I can trust you enough to tell you. I told Bellatrix, but only because I killed her right after. It really is one of those things where I’d have to kill you if I told you.”

Snape’s eyebrows rose. “You killed Bellatrix?”

Harry snorted, taking a seat. Snape kept standing. “Who else? I cut her arm off, too. Burned it right in front of her. She wasn’t happy about that. Or did you think being the chosen one meant I got to keep my hands clean?” He looked at the portrait of Dumbledore and smiled. “It doesn’t matter if you know. I can’t fulfill the prophecy from Azkaban. Not that I couldn’t get out. I mean, you killed Dumbledore and you’re still running around, aren’t you?”

“It is of no matter,” Snape ultimately concluded. “What is it you wished to speak about? I do not have time to indulge your puerile prattling. Indeed, I am no longer being paid to.”

Harry glanced at the Pensieve again, wondering what memories Snape had left in it. Or perhaps some of Dumbledore’s lingered. 

“You sent that patronus to Hermione and Ron,” Harry said, watching Snape’s reaction. “You gave Bellatrix a fake sword, and left the real one for them to find. Your patronus is a doe. You were friends with my mum. My dad’s animagus was a stag. So either you’ve been holding a torch for him for twenty years, or for my mum. Based on your look of abject horror, I would guess it was my mum. Right?”

“That,” Snape hissed, “is none of your concern.”

“Fine,” Harry said, letting it go. “Dumbledore must have left you instructions. That’s why you planted the sword, right? You only forked it over when Phineas told you those two had gone on holiday in the middle of a warzone. What else did he tell you to do?”

Snape silently gestured to the Pensieve. “Help yourself. I believe you are familiar with this particular form of presumption.”

“What? Too bitter to use your big boy words?” Harry said, standing up and walking over. “I’m really sick of jumping through all of these hoops, you know?” He grinned at Snape. “I’ve known for ages Dumbledore must have had something over you. No one would work a job they so clearly hated for so long without a reason.”

“Potter, my patience is limited,” Snape said. “You are mistaken if you believe you are entitled to anything I have to offer you.”

“I disagree,” Harry said. “I’m the only one able to stop your precious Dark Lord, aren’t I?"

Not wanting to be thrown bodily into the Pensieve, Harry struck his head in before Snape could respond.

Harry waded through the murk of Snape's memories. Harry had told him he wouldn't listen unless Snape told him everything. He guessed this was Snape's way of getting Harry to trust him.

Snape, he decided, had always been a little creepy. Harry watched a nine-year-old Snape crouching behind bushes and watching his mother fly off a swing to land lightly on the asphalt, while Petunia berated her. Lily showed her older sister a flower she made open and close, while Petunia shrieked at her to stop. 

Snape revealed himself, explaining that it was magic and that he could do it too. Harry noticed his mismatched, oversized hand-me-downs, how underfed this child Snape looked. He wondered how Snape could have seen the same things in Harry and decided it meant he was a spoiled little prince.

The memory changed. Snape explained Hogwarts and owl post, promised Lily that it didn't make a difference if she was muggleborn. Was that why he had kept the name Snape, instead of using his mother's pureblood name? Some kind of camaraderie?

Petunia caught them talking, and Snape made a branch fall on her after she insulted his clothes. They were just children, though it didn't help that Harry knew both as adults.

Then they were on the station platform. Petunia called Lily a freak. Harry learned his aunt had sent Dumbledore a letter, asking if she could go too. Squibs had magical jobs. Why not a muggle?

Snape and Lily ran into James and Sirius on the train.

“Who wants to be in Slytherin? I think I’d leave, wouldn’t you?” James asked Sirius.

They were just children, Harry reminded himself again, watching his eleven-year-old father trip Snape. Ron had said basically the same thing. And look how that turned out…

Lily was sorted into Gryffindor as soon as the Hat touched her head. Snape, of course, went to Slytherin.

Several years passed. Harry listened as his mother equated dark magic with evil, excusing the vicious bullying James and the others did as less harmful because it wasn't dark. 

She must have been fifteen or sixteen. Harry had been using dark magic younger than that. Snape too, based on his expression. Harry had never spent much time thinking about how his parents would feel about who he was, the kind of magic he did, the sorts of things he did. He hoped they would prefer he stay alive using whatever he had at his disposal. Would they tell their son to die for the greater good? The son they gave their lives for?

Evil. Is that what this fifteen-year-old girl would think of him?

The scene after the Defense O.W.L. he had seen before. The bored Sirius, the fawning Pettigrew, the scourgify and levicorpus. Snape, angry, hurt, ashamed, calling Lily a mudblood. Harry watched his mother's face crumble, then harden with resolve as she finally gave up on her Slytherin friend.

If Theo called him a mudblood, Harry would just laugh at him.

He watched Snape waiting next to the Fat Lady, night after night.

"I never meant to call you mudblood, it just—”

“Slipped out?” There was no pity in Lily’s voice. “It’s too late. I’ve made excuses for you for years. None of my friends can understand why I even talk to you. You and your precious little Death Eater friends—you see, you don’t even deny it! You don’t even deny that’s what you’re all aiming to be! You can’t wait to join You-Know-Who, can you?”

Snape opened his mouth, but closed it again without speaking.

“I can’t pretend anymore," Lily declared. "You’ve chosen your way, I’ve chosen mine.”

He watched his mother walk away from Snape. If there was ever a chance he wouldn't join Voldemort, it had just climbed back into a portrait hole.

Harry knew it wasn't teenage Lily's responsibility to save Snape, or anyone else's, except perhaps his parents. Not that there was any hope of that. 

Lily could at least try to understand why Snape walked that path. Why Voldemort became who he was. But Lily didn't grow up poor, beaten, or bullied. She was smart, pretty, popular. Loved. So was James. They lacked empathy for the Snapes of the world.

Sirius did a good job of hiding his childhood. Maybe it had helped him be more open minded when it came to magic. But he had left his home, abandoned his little brother to the echo chamber of Slytherin during Voldemort's rise.

How much of a choice was it? For Snape, for Regulus, for Draco. It was how they survived. Harry knew what it was to compromise, the choices one had to make to keep living.

More years passed in a nauseating whirlwind of color. Harry found himself on a hill next to an adult Snape. Snape was spinning around, eyes wild with fear, wand shaking in his hand. A crack of light disarmed him, and he fell to his knees.

"Don't kill me!"

"That was not my intention."

Dumbledore stood before him, robes whipping in the wind, his face ominously lit from below. Harry snorted at the drama.

It was after Snape had told Voldemort the prophecy. Voldemort had decided it referred to Harry. Snape had asked Voldemort to spare Lily, had begged him, then turned to Dumbledore for help.

“You disgust me,” Dumbledore said contemptuously. “You do not care, then, about the deaths of her husband and child? They can die, as long as you have what you want?”

Did Dumbledore disgust himself, then? It didn't matter if Harry died, as long as he took Voldemort with him?

Snape remained silent. Harry knew by now Snape wasn't simply in love with his dead mother, but obsessed with her. Harry knew what that was like. The articles, the stalking, the love potions. Half their world was obsessed with him.

“Hide them all, then,” Snape pleaded. “Keep her—them—safe. Please.”

The next memory was in Dumbledore's office. Voldemort hadn't spared Lily. Dumbledore hadn't kept her safe.

“I wish…I wish I were dead," Snape said. Lily's death had broken him. It was likely the two hadn't spoken for years, and now they never would again.

“And what use would that be to anyone?”  

Skeeter would have a field day. 

Harry knew it, he knew behind that genial facade was this Dumbledore, the one who positioned people like toy soldiers. The one whose machinations had tried to force Harry's life into certain paths, shaped by Dumbledore's own hand.

“You know how and why she died. Make sure it was not in vain. Help me protect Lily’s son.”

More years passed, until it was Harry's first year.

“—mediocre, arrogant as his father, a determined rule-breaker, delighted to find himself famous, attention-seeking and impertinent—”

Dumbledore ignored Snape's ranting. “Keep an eye on Quirrell, won’t you?”

Harry rubbed his face. The old man must have known about Quirrell from the beginning.

Then it was fourth year, the dark mark growing darker.

Sixth year, the curse on Dumbledore's hand, tempted by the ring, by the stone. Dumbledore ordering Snape to kill him.

“Would you like me to do it now? Or would you like a few moments to compose an epitaph?”

Harry choked on a laugh.

“If you don’t mind dying, why not let Draco do it?”

“That boy’s soul is not yet so damaged. I would not have it ripped apart on my account.”

“And my soul, Dumbledore? Mine?”

A hint from Dumbledore about horcruxes. Surely Snape could have found the right book. Draco's soul got to remain pure or whatever drivel Dumbledore called it. Not Snape's, though. Not Harry's.

“Souls? We were talking of minds!”

“In the case of Harry and Lord Voldemort, to speak of one is to speak of the other.”

Dumbledore didn't notice Hagrid listening nearby, though not long enough to hear that little tidbit. Nor the rest.

“Tell him that on the night Lord Voldemort tried to kill him, when Lily cast her own life between them as a shield, the Killing Curse rebounded upon Lord Voldemort, and a fragment of Voldemort’s soul was blasted apart from the whole, and latched itself onto the only living soul left in that collapsed building. Part of Lord Voldemort lives inside Harry, and it is that which gives him the power of speech with snakes, and a connection with Lord Voldemort’s mind that he has never understood. And while that fragment of soul, unmissed by Voldemort, remains attached to and protected by Harry, Lord Voldemort cannot die.”

Confirmation. Of what Dumbledore believed, at least. But Harry felt the truth of it. In his blood, in his bones. In his soul. His mind.

“I have spied for you and lied for you, put myself in mortal danger for you. Everything was supposed to be to keep Lily Potter’s son safe. Now you tell me you have been raising him like a pig for slaughter—”

Harry watched more time pass. Snape plotting with Dumbledore. Hermione and Ron in the Forest of Dean, the sword of Gryffindor, the doe patronus.

"Don't worry, Dumbledore. I have a plan…"

Harry pulled back from the Pensieve, gasping.

"Well," he said. "That's proved it.'

Snape watched him with wary eyes, watched Harry's reaction.

"Proved what, Potter?"

"Everything I suspected," Harry said, sitting back down. "What Theo hypothesized."

"Theodore Nott?"

"Yeah, my boyfriend," Harry said, smiling faintly. 

Snape gave him a classic sneer.

"Don't tell me you're prejudiced? Or do you think Theo could do better? Or is it that I could look past his house and his family, and my mum couldn't?"

Snape weaved his hands together, as if stopping himself from throttling Harry.

"And what is it, Potter, that you have suspected?"

Harry cast a muffliato around the two of them, which drew a dirty look from Snape.

"I knew Dumbledore asked you to kill him. I knew about the Unbreakable Vow Narcissa Malfoy had you swear. I also knew Dumbledore expected I would die, though I didn't know why until recently."

Harry took a breath, then let it go. "Riddle's preoccupied searching for something. Our wands are connected, we can't use them to kill each other, and he wants what he thinks is the most powerful wand to kill me. Then he'll take over the world or whatever. He lost his mind years ago, there's no telling what he really wants. He's mostly guided by anger and vengeance."

Snape said nothing, just kept watching him.

"If you want to know what Dumbledore told me and not you, it's that Riddle made horcruxes. He split his soul and hid the pieces in six objects, objects which are now all destroyed. I tortured and killed Bellatrix to get access to the final one. The sword of Gryffindor can be used to destroy them because I inadvertently imbued it with basilisk venom when I used it to kill said basilisk. The ring Dumbledore had was a horcrux, an heirloom of the Gaunt family. He used the sword to break it. He wanted you to give the sword to Hermione and Ron, probably in the mistaken belief I would include them in this quest of mine."

"I take it you did not?" Snape said.

"No, but Theo knows everything. And Sirius. They've helped me, and so have a few others."

"And what Dumbledore said to me," Snape said, staring at Harry, "suggests you are a horcrux?"

"That's why I wanted to know if Nagini was alive," Harry said. "I killed her. With the Killing Curse. I saw her dead body. I felt Voldemort find her corpse. But Bellatrix told me she is still alive, and you confirmed that.

Snape tapped the desk. "And you believe you will survive it again?"

"I have no idea," Harry said. "Which is why I am so angry."

Snape frowned at him. "You seem…composed."

"Because I'm occluding," Harry said calmly. "It's what's stopping me from burning this office down. I told you I've been practicing occlumency for years. Did you think I was lying? Not that it matters."

Harry closed his eyes. "If Dumbledore had told me any of this sooner, I would have had more time to prepare an alternative. He could have too! Killing Riddle isn't the only option!"

"What do you mean?" Snape asked.

"We could trap him!” Harry said, his emotions seeping through. “Trap his soul or wraith or whatever. I could have studied magics that affect the soul. I could have trained a dementor to suck out only part of a soul. You could have made some kind of horcrux separation potion. I don't know, because Dumbledore kept us ignorant and made it so my death was the answer to Riddle's defeat. He set it up so by the time I worked it out on my own—when Theo worked it out—any alternatives would be out of reach!"

Harry took a deep breath. He felt an arm wrap around his shoulders and startled, but it was only Theo.

"Mr. Nott," Snape said. "What, pray tell, are you doing here?"

"Hello, professor," Theo said, looking at him briefly, before focusing back on Harry. "I'm here for Harry, of course."

"I'm sorry to hear about your father," Snape said.

Theo smiled. "I'm not."

"What are you planning to do with this information, Potter?" Snape asked, dismissing Theo's presence.

"That's the other thing I wanted to talk about," Harry said. "We've actually set a trap for Riddle. Unfortunately it's on the grounds, at the only place we know for certain he will show up."

"Here?" Snape said, sitting forward. "At the school? Have you completely taken leave of your senses?"

"It's Dumbledore's tomb," Theo said. "The Dark Lord has been searching for something. That search will inevitably lead to Dumbledore."

Snape furrowed his brow. "What could the Dark Lord possibly want with the headmaster's body?"

Harry snorted. "Not his body, unless he wants to make an inferi. What he wants is his wand."

"Dumbledore is the last known possessor of the—"

Harry's scar flared to wretched life. He pressed his hand against it, eyes tearing with the pain. “No, no, no! I need more time!”

He approached Grindelwald, Nagini slithering next to him. The old man was sleeping beneath his thin blanket, a worn book at his side. Grindelwald woke, turned his sunken eyes to him, baring his rotting teeth in a smile.

“So, you have come. I thought you would, one day. But your journey was pointless. I never had it.”

“You lie!”

Voldemort’s anger surged through Harry, and he bent over in agony. He didn’t want this to happen. Not now. It was too soon. He had just learned the truth, all of it. He thought he would have more time.

“Kill me, then, Voldemort, I welcome death! But my death will not bring you what you seek. There is so much you do not understand.”

Grindelwald started laughing. “Kill me! You will not win, you cannot win! That wand will never, ever be yours!“

Voldemort killed him then. A violent burst of green light that lifted Grindelwald’s body from his thin mattress, and slammed him back down. Voldemort called Nagini to him, and once she wrapped around him they disappeared in a burst of smoke.

“Fuck,” Harry said, wiping his eyes. “He’s just killed Grindelwald.”

“Who has?” Snape demanded. 

“Riddle,” Theo said. “Obviously. He’ll be coming here next. Dumbledore defeated Grindelwald.”

“Grindelwald lied to him,” Harry said, squeezing his eyes shut. “He told Riddle he never had the wand.”

“What wand?” Snape asked.

“The Elder Wand,” Theo said. “The Deathstick, the Wand of Destiny. Choose your inane moniker for the thing.”

“Don’t worry,” Harry said. “He won’t find it in Dumbledore’s tomb. Well, he might think he has.”

Snape frowned at the two of them. “What have you done?”

Harry leaned back in his chair, shutting his eyes. He wasn’t ready for this. He didn’t have a choice. 

“Theo can explain.”