Hope Has a Place
Part Twelve
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Harry sneezed as he was flung from the Floo network into a room, landing flat on his face as was usual when he travelled by Floo. He pushed himself to his knees and that's when he saw them, black robed legs and black shoes, six pairs of them. His first thought was Death Eaters, but his scar wasn't hurting. He didn't think Madam Pomfrey's glamour would have stopped any pain, it just made the scar invisible for a while.

He struggled to his feet, trying to get back to the Floo, but there were too many for him to fight. Aurors, not Death Eaters after all. The thought did little to comfort him. One of the Aurors frisked him and removed his wand, Harry shuddered at the unknown hands touching him.

"Hello, Harry. We were wondering when you would show up," Harry writhed against the men holding him and looked into the smiling face of Cornelius Fudge, Minister for Magic. His only coherent thought at the moment was that somehow the Floo had been intercepted and they had been betrayed. Again.

"Let go of me!" Harry hissed to the Aurors, he didn't recognise any of them, but all of them seemed well built and muscular. It was futile to try and get free from them, but he tried anyway. He would not give in without a fight. Not anymore. "What do you want?" he demanded of Fudge.

"Do you really think the Ministry would allow you to leave, Harry? After all the effort put in with your training? You have a war to win, young man and you are not going anywhere."

"You're taking me prisoner?" He shouldn't laugh really, but it was either that or scream and he'd done enough screaming. He just hoped Snape had enough sense to stay away. No point in them both being captured.

"Oh, I wouldn't say that, Harry. Just think of it as protective custody. From now on you and Severus Snape are Ministry property."

"I'm not anyone's property!"

"Ah, here's our other guest," said Fudge, ignoring Harry's outburst.

"Run! It's a trap, professor!" he shrieked at the top of his lungs, but Snape ignored him and walked out of the fireplace with his usual calm elegance. Curse the man's honour, he wasn't going to leave Harry here alone, but now both of them were prisoners of the Ministry. There was a small smudge of soot on Snape's cheek and Harry had a strong desire to smooth it off with his finger.

Snape went for his wand, but a few more Aurors Apparated into the room and disarmed him in a matter of moments. Harry tried casting a few hexes at the men holding him, but Fudge just laughed. "Sorry, Harry, only authorised wizards and witches can peform magic in the Ministry, and since neither of you are authorised, you can't do any magic."

"What are we doing here, Fudge?" asked Snape. "You have no right to detain us."

"No right? No right? I am the Minister of Magic. I can do whatever I like. You think a seventeen year old boy and a Death Eater are going to worry me? Harry was born for this purpose and he is going to do it. He and you will be our guests until he's needed."

"And when will that be?" sneered Snape. "When you finally realise that you're nothing but a coward?"

"How dare you insult me!" roared Fudge and slapped Snape across the cheek. Harry winced in empathy. Snape didn't even break a sweat. Harry guessed he must have been used to worse from Voldemort.

"You think that's an insult? I wouldn't waste my breath on the likes of you."

"Show them to their accomodations," Fudge told his Aurors. "Tonight, I'll let you get settled in, but tomorrow you both work for me."

***

The room wasn't a cell. It was small but pleasantly furnished with a pale blue sofa, a table and chairs and a bed. One bed, not much bigger than a single. But there were no windows and the door behind them was locked shut with an ominous clang. There was no fireplace so they couldn't even send for help by Floo.

A half open doorway led to a small bathroom, which had a tiny shower cubicle, toilet and a basin so small Harry wasn't sure his hands would even fit in it. He and Snape exchanged glances at each other, then the bed, then each other again. Harry wouldn't mind the floor, he'd been used to worse at the Dursleys', but neither of them seemed comfortable enough to discuss it yet.

Harry sat down on the sofa, just as Snape sat at the table. The table top was so scarred it almost seemed like a pattern on the wood. "They can't just keep us here," said Harry, more to himself than Snape, but he couldn't see Dumbledore allowing both of them to be trapped here. "Dumbledore will make him release us."

Snape just stared at him, tracing his finger through the woodgrain of the table.

"Who do you think did it, professor?" Harry didn't think Madam Pomfrey knew that they were going to end up in the Ministry of Magic in a locked room.

"I think in the circumstances, Harry, you should call me Severus. We are no longer teacher and student, will no longer be that to each other."

"Um, what are we to each other?" he asked then, confused as to their roles. "What do you expect from me?" He wished he didn't blush so much as he said it.

"What do you mean, Harry?"

"Well, you're a man and men usually expect certain things. Bedroom things." He would not cry. He would not.

"Harry, I expect nothing from you. I just want to be with you, I can't deny that I desire you, for I do, but I would never push you into anything you don't want. If you want us just to be friends, then I am fine with that too. It's up to you, Harry. The decision is entirely yours. Maybe one day you'll feel comfortable enough to be intimate with me, but it will be up to you."

"I love you," said Harry. "But I'm scared. I'm scared I'll never be well enough to allow you to do that."

"Harry, there's no rush. Please don't feel you have to do things you aren't ready for, I'm not going to force you. What would you like, Harry? What do you feel comfortable with?"

"I like being held," he said shyly. "I like your arms around me, you're so strong, I feel safe when I'm in your arms. I liked being held on your lap - I like kisses too."

"Harry, I can guarantee you all the hugs and kisses you want. That will not be a problem," Snape smiled at him, and Harry couldn't help smiling back.

"But - but wouldn't it be a bit frustrating for you? Just to kiss and cuddle?" he asked and wondered at his own boldness.

Snape flushed, two high spots of colour on his cheekbones. "I am not a young man, Harry, beset by hormones all the time and I am quite capable of handling any problems that might arise," he chuckled.

"Was that a pun? You were talking about - you know - touching yourself?"

"Would it bother you that I might do that?"

"No. You're very understanding about this, I didn't think you would be. I thought men wanted sex all the time, no matter what."

"Some men are like that, yes," agreed Snape. "But I am not like other men, and neither are you."

"No, I don't suppose I am." Harry got up from the sofa and stood by Snape's chair, his fingers trailing along the back of it, wishing he had the confidence to touch Snape's hair or neck. "Can I have a hug?"

Snape stood up and embraced him so tightly that the air left his lungs. "Whenever you want," Snape whispered to his hair.

"What do you think Fudge wants me to do?" Harry lifted his head to look up at his former professor. Two deep black pools returned his gaze.

"Tomorrow? I don't know, but eventually he wants what they all do. You to defeat Voldemort. You're a weapon, Harry, a weapon almost eighteen years in the making and they want you where they can control you."

"Who?"

"The Ministry - and Dumbledore."

"Dumbledore? You don't think he has anything to do with it? Dumbledore wouldn't allow it."

"There are a lot of things Dumbledore would allow, Harry, as long as they served his ends. He's been manipulating you for years, since before you were born even. He doesn't want his perfect weapon out of his control, I smell Dumbledore's hand in this."

"No, he wouldn't, Dumbledore wouldn't do that."

"Oh, like you thought Lupin wouldn't rape you?" Snape clamped a hand over his mouth almost as soon as he said it. "Harry, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that."

"It's okay. Please, Severus, tell me everything you know."

"Are you sure you want to hear it? It isn't pretty," sighed Snape, but he hadn't said no.

"My whole life hasn't been pretty, what's a few more secrets?"

And then Snape began to tell him about what Dumbledore had done, both to him and Lupin, how he'd manipulated the wolf in Lupin to get it done. He heard that Dobby was really someone called Master Dobain, a supernatural being that were called Immortali, how Draco and Ron helped with the Three-Fold spell.

Harry listened silently, taking everything in. After Snape finished his tale, Harry didn't feel angry, he felt numb. He could hardly believe the depths Dumbledore went to. It appalled him and why on earth did Lupin agree to it? He thought Lupin liked him, he thought he was like a grandson to Dumbledore. But what grandfather would do things like that? Did Lupin rape him in third year due to Dumbledore's orders or had he thought of that on his own?

"What did you mean when you said that he was manipulating me before I was born? Fudge said I was born to face Voldemort, but how can that be? I was just an ordinary baby until Voldemort decided to kill my parents."

"You were never an ordinary baby, Harry. Do you know anything about Muggle genetics?"

"Not a lot. What's that got to do with anything?"

"Well, sometimes when Muggles can't have children, they go through a certain process called In-Vitro-Fertilisation, have you heard of it?"

"Test-tube babies," said Harry slowly, not liking the way this conversation was heading, but he was too far gone on the journey to stop now.

"Why do you think Voldemort went after your parents, Harry? He wasn't after the Potters, he was after you. He knew you would be the only one powerful enough to destroy him and he tried to destroy you first."

"I don't understand."

"IVF in Muggles, is fairly simple, take sperm and egg and combine them. But wizards can do it all magically. They can also add a third person's DNA into the embryo, Muggles haven't been able to perfect that technique yet."

"You mean I have a third parent? But why? Why would my parents even allow that?"

"Lily and James were members of the Order of the Phoenix, Harry, soliders, they did what they were told to do. They were chosen to be your adoptive parents, the two main parents."

Harry shook his head, it was all like some sci-fi movie, a really bad one. Three parents? Who ever heard of such a thing, even if they were wizards? And the knowledge that his parents hadn't really wanted him, were just obeying orders to conceive a tool to defeat Voldemort was like ice in his veins. Only they weren't really his veins, were they?

"And the third? Who was the third?" He wasn't sure he really wanted to know, he could guess. He felt hot and cold at once, he couldn't stop shaking. Why, why had they done it? He was an abomination, he had been created not out of love as he'd always thought but out of a desire for revenge. No-one had thought about him in all of this. Not about the child Harry would be, but only what he could do for them.

"Please, take it back! Tell me it's not true!"

"I'm sorry, Harry, you know it is true. I think in your heart you've always known it."

And hadn't he? Hadn't he always thought there was something strange about himself? Something just a little bit off besides all that Boy Who Lived nonsense?

"It wasn't the scar," he said, his voice sounding hollow. "All those times I saw him, I felt him, it wasn't the scar."

"No, Harry, it wasn't."

"Dumbledore lied to me. He told me Voldemort transferred some of his powers to me the same night I got my scar, but that was a lie. I already had the power, didn't I?"

"Yes, Harry. You did."

Harry sank to his knees, breathing as if he'd just run a marathon. It was all too much to take in, he couldn't take any more. He did the only thing he could to make it all stop.

He fainted.

Part Thirteen