The Dementors' Damage
“I don’t need help from Filthy Little Mudbloods like her!” . The most vile words Severus had ever spoken kept replaying over and over in his head like a broken record ever since he had spent time in such close proximity to the Dementors. Even his prowess at Occlumency had not helped as much as he had expected it to. It had kept him functioning, so that he could do the job the Dark Lord had ordered him to do; but it had not made him immune to the despair, hopelessness, nor the icy chill in his bones that the Dementors inflicted on anyone who went near them.
“None of my friends can understand why I even talk to you. You and your little Death Eater friends - you see, 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?”
Severus turned over in bed and pressed his cheek a little more firmly into his pillow. He was completely exhausted, but sleep was proving a difficult feat. Each time he expertly closed his mind to his worst memories and regrets, Lily persisted in breaking through his defences in a different way. It made sense - Lily had always been the exception to everything when it came to Severus. She’d had a talent for being able to see straight through him and know instinctively what he tried to hide. Only now, the image of her in his mind was making him recoil in shame. Her bright green eyes were full of disappointment, sadness, and accusation. Everything that had happened to her was his fault.
He’d been tossing and turning about it all night. Though far away from the Dementors now, it was like they were still hissing in his ear with their cold raspy breath and reminding him that no matter what he did, he would never be able to redeem or pardon himself . He had grown up to be everything that Lily despised. This he knew for a fact, because Lily had never shied away from telling him what she really thought.
Unforgivable. The word seemed to hang over him like a headline for his pathetic excuse of a life. Severus covered his face with his hands and a little moan escaped his lips. He hadn’t had a night like this in awhile. Mostly because he had trained himself to usually not think about Lily, not because it had gotten easier to live with his guilt. However, she had been on his mind more and more often lately, even before his encounter with the Dementors forced him to remember all of his worst memories. The ever increasing presence of her son in his life was the cause of that.
Severus rolled over in bed again and cast his gaze on the curled up form of Lily’s sleeping child in his armchair. Why Harry was even in his house at all right now, Severus wasn’t sure. Though he might have at least gone to the bedroom, Severus had given up for him. That chair couldn’t be very comfortable, especially without a pillow or blanket. Even though Harry didn’t seem to mind in the slightest, judging by the amount of times Severus had returned home from a Death Eater meeting to find the boy exactly as he was now. Severus supposed that was what happened when you grew up in a cramped cupboard.
“Lily, how upset would you be about this?” Severus silently wondered, for he couldn’t imagine any circumstance where his old friend would approve of him getting this close to her son. Not to mention the father, who would die all over again if he knew where Harry was right now.
Severus didn’t care how James Potter felt about anything, but he did worry about what Lily would think. In a lot of ways, it seemed almost like a greater betrayal of her memory to have a positive relationship with her child, instead of just concentrating on making all of their encounters a mutually unpleasant experience. Why should he of all people get to enjoy a place in Harry’s life while his parents were dead and missing everything? Severus knew that he truly deserved to be hated by Harry, and he had done everything in the past four years to ensure that was precisely what happened.
Though as he watched the boy sleeping, Severus felt the first flicker of warmth within him that he had experienced in days and he was forced to admit to himself that things had changed. He had known it when he’d been unable to resist replacing Harry’s worn out hand-me downs with clothing that actually fit. Or when he’d mailed him the old pocket watch for his birthday and truly been nervous about how it would be received. Severus had grown to care deeply for the welfare of this boy and he wasn’t sure if he could go back to the way things were before this summer. Being honest with himself, he didn’t really want to.
“I don’t - what?” Harry muttered incoherently, surprising Severus by suddenly sitting up and opening his eyes. It was almost like he had sensed he was being watched and had been pulled out of sleep by it. Severus hadn’t even realized that he had been staring at the boy for several minutes by that point, until Harry turned to look at him.
“You were dreaming,” Severus explained softly.
Harry shook his head. “I was watching -”
He pointed at the television which was now a bright blue screen. The videocassette had been rewound and ejected once it had finished playing, but Harry had been fast asleep before it had even reached the midpoint. Looking slightly amused, Severus reached over to pick up the remote control from the coffee table. He turned off the television and the room dissolved into greater darkness. The curtains were pulled open, but the moon had finished its cycle and was not lighting up the sky like it sometimes did. Now Severus could barely make out the outline of Harry’s face. He had temporarily relieved himself from having to look into Lily’s eyes.
“I’m going to get a drink,” asked Harry.
Severus could have easily conjured him one, but he allowed the boy to get up and go across the hall into the kitchen. Then he took advantage of his momentary absence to pick up his wand and conjure more pillows and blankets, if Harry was going to remain downstairs. In all honesty, Severus had been quite happy to see him when he'd returned, even if it confused him. In the aftermath of dropping Harry off at Grimmauld Place, his house had suddenly begun to seem much too large and too quiet for just himself.
“Here, sir.” Harry had brought him a glass of water too. “How long was I out for?”
“I don’t know,” Severus replied, after taking a long drink of water. “I believe I fell asleep before you.”
He watched Harry pick up the blanket conjured for him and then, instead of settling back into the armchair, he surprised Severus by coming over to sit on the carpet in front of the coffee table instead. He leaned his back against the frame of Severus’s bed and held his glass of water with both hands. Severus observed the messy head of black hair that was level with his mattress. Would he ever get used to how remarkably identical to his father Harry was?
“What was it like?” Harry asked quietly.
Severus was tempted to pretend that he didn’t know what he was being asked, but then he caught himself and decided to just answer honestly. “Cold and wet,” he said simply. “It was awful.”
“How did you get there?” asked Harry.
“We apparated,” Severus replied. “Azkaban is in a very remote part of the North Sea, but it is not the only island around. We went to a rocky reef about a mile away from the fortress, and that was close enough. We camped out there for a few days while we negotiated an offer that the Dementors couldn’t refuse. All on behalf of the Dark Lord.”
Harry shivered and Severus’s hand acted of its own accord, reaching out to squeeze the boy’s shoulder in an attempt at a comforting gesture. Harry let out a sigh of relief at its presence and Severus refrained from pulling back. He wondered what Harry was imagining right now? If he could see the stormy waves crashing against the rock he, Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle had been huddled together on. The Dementors had been swooping around excitedly for all the innocent souls they’d just been promised. Their side had just gained some very powerful allies indeed, in the form of some of the darkest creatures on this planet.
“Sir, I was very worried that something bad had happened,” Harry confessed, sitting perfectly still while Severus maintained his hold on him.
“You mean something worse than forging an alliance between the most vile creatures on earth and the Death Eaters, which will guarantee a mass breakout from Azkaban?” Severus asked sarcastically.
“I thought something had happened to you,” Harry reiterated, staring down determinedly into his glass.
Severus was slightly taken aback at these words. Truth be told, he was extremely touched by the concern and he squeezed Harry’s shoulder a little more tightly for it. Perhaps this was why Dumbledore had brought Harry here, to encourage this caring. Even though it made Severus feel a little uncomfortable, considering he had no control over whether anything happened to him or not when he took these chances.
“You don’t have to worry about things like that,” Severus said slowly.
“Why not?” demanded Harry, turning his head for the first time to look round at him.
“Because I’m not worth worrying about,” Severus replied coolly, as he met Harry’s green eyes. “Trust me on that one, Harry.”
Harry shook his head for a third time as he looked forward again. "That isn't true. Don't say things like that. "
Severus pressed his lips together and considered the boy so close to him. He knew that his tactic of indifference to his own welfare wouldn't work now. For Dumbledore, it was a gift how much Severus was willing to risk on behalf of righting the wrongs of the past, but Harry didn’t see things that way. Harry didn’t know the extent of Severus’s crimes. He was also clearly afraid of more loss, and Severus had somehow become one of those people he feared losing.
“Obviously, I can’t promise nothing bad will happen to me, but I can promise that it’s worth it to me,” Severus told him. “I don’t regret spying for the Order in the least. I made terrible choices in the past that give me the opportunity now to fulfill this unique position. Nobody else can do what I can do, because nobody else in the Order has ever been as horrid as me.”
“People change,” said Harry neutrally.
“Perhaps,” Severus said wearily.
He’d like to believe that he had changed. At least he knew with confidence that given the chance to begin his life again, he would rewrite an entirely different story. Though the reality was that nobody could just undo the past, and redemption seemed impossible, when the consequences of his mistakes were still constantly felt.
Severus waited until he saw Harry drain the last bit of water from his glass and then he nudged him gently on the shoulder. “You should go to bed.”
“I never thanked you, sir,” Harry said suddenly, ignoring his suggestion. “I kept waiting for you to come to headquarters so I could get you alone to thank you for giving me my grandfather’s watch. I never expected to receive anything like it.”
“Well, of course not,” Severus said calmly. “Why would you have ever expected me to have such an item in my posession? Anyway, I was just returning it to its rightful owner. Your mother would have wanted you to have it.”
“Well, not really,” Harry countered, turning his head to look Severus directly in the eye. “She gave it to you, didn’t she? It was never intended for me.”
“Maybe not,” Severus said softly. “But your mother gave that pocketwatch to me in good faith, which I broke. We stopped being friends just a couple years after that.”
“Is that why you became a Death Eater?” asked Harry bravely. “Because you lost her friendship?”
“No,” Severus said shortly, not sure why he was sharing these parts of himself. Except that he had already gone this far and felt that he might as well continue. The Dementors had weakened him and he was tired of always being so closed off. Keeping his mind shut was extremely wearing and he didn’t want to do that right now.
“I lost her because I wanted to become a Death Eater,” he explained. “I was getting more and more obsessed with the Dark Arts. They fascinated me, they still do. I love how complex that sort of magic is and how it holds infinite possibilities. My talents were respected there. I guess what I craved most of all was acceptance, and the peers in my house at school, who were also going down that route, appreciated me. It was always just a matter of time, I suppose.”
“And my mum tried to get you to go the other way?” guessed Harry. “Why didn’t you listen to her?”
“It’s more complicated than that,” Severus replied. “We were sorted into different houses and we naturally grew apart. We ate at separate tables for meals, sat on opposite sides of the classroom during lessons, and hung out in different common rooms. We made different friends….mine were the wrong sort of friends. But make no mistake, Harry, choosing to join the Death Eaters is one hundred percent my fault.”
“Well, I respect what you do, sir," Harry said quietly. "I respect what you do very much."