Hope Has a Place
Part Thirteen
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Snape managed to get to Harry before he fell completely to the ground. Snape held him firm against his chest as Harry sagged, like a puppet whose strings had been cut. "Harry?" he shook the boy a little to try and rouse him but Harry wasn't coming round. Snape hoped Harry had only fainted and hadn't gone completely catatonic like before. That was a scary scenario he would rather not revisit while they were detained at the Ministry's pleasure.

Snape scooped Harry up in his arms. Harry was so light it was almost like lifting air. He could feel the outline of Harry's ribs and the knobs on his spine as Snape carried him to the bed. He knew that Harry hadn't been eating for a while, but feeling his bones under the skin just brought it home to him how fragile a state Harry was really in.

Harry was shivering on the bed, despite still wearing the black cloak. Snape thought the room was too hot, not cold at all. He was starting to perspire and removed his own cloak, placing it on top of Harry like a blanket. Harry could not endure too much more and Snape knew if they stayed here much longer, neither would he.

Already he felt the beginnings of a panic attack coming on, the tightness in his chest, spots before his eyes, pins and needles in his arms and legs. Air. He needed to get some air and he tried to breathe through it. In. Out. In. Out. There had to be something, they couldn't stay locked up here. There had to be a secret passageway, some way out.

Snape tried to rouse Harry once more to no avail, Harry just didn't seem to be want to be conscious and Snape could hardly blame him for that. He wandered all round the room, tapping the walls to see if any of them sounded hollow; listening at each crack in the plaster for a whistle of wind. There was nothing. The room was airtight. No, he shouldn't have thought of that. Airtight implied there was only a finite amount of air in the room. How long would it take to suffocate in here?

"There has to be something!" Snape snarled and kicked the door with his foot. It rattled on its hinges but other than that showed no sign of giving. Flecks of paint and dust swirled to the floor like confetti.

"You can't keep us here, Fudge!" he screamed, knowing they were probably being spied upon. It was that thought and the fact that he needed to look after Harry which prevented him from sinking to the floor and letting the fear overwhelm him.

For who would have thought that a Death Eater would suffer from claustrophobia? No-one else knew of it, not even Dumbledore. Snape hadn't trusted the man as far as that, not when he discovered what his duties would involve. A duty that he fervently hoped Harry never asked him about. He didn't think he could handle Harry knowing what part he had played in the boy's conception.

There was no great mystery to his condition, Snape knew exactly when it had started and who was to blame, Lucius Malfoy. When he was five years old, he was invited to Lucius Malfoy's eighth birthday party. That five year old worshipped the older boy, thinking him a pale blonde angel. Soon he was to discover that Lucius should have been born with horns and a forked tail, just to warn people.

When Malfoy suggested a game of hide and seek, Snape readily agreed and hid in one of the manor's many rooms. He didn't know until later that it had all been a trick to get him into a room that could be locked from the outside. They wanted to see how long he lasted before he would cry for his mother.

Snape had screamed himself hoarse that day, sobbing and sniffing as he tried and tried to open the door. He could hear Lucius and his older friends laughing on the other side of the door but they wouldn't open it, no matter how much he cried and begged. Snape had been terrifed that they would never open the door and he would die in there.

He was finally released close to midnight by a grinning Lucius and his friends. But in his terror, Snape had wet himself and the cruel taunts were nearly worse than being locked in had been. Malfoy never let him forget it and that day was the first time he heard the nickname, "Snivellus." It was Malfoy who had coined it, not any of the Marauders as Harry may have thought from seeing Snape's pensieve.

Snape hated being locked in, hated not being able to control his own destiny and not for the first time he wondered what on earth had possessed him to bind himself to two masters who were constantly trying to control him. Why had he ever agreed to do what Dumbledore wanted? The answer was appallingly simple. Dumbledore had flattered his fragile ego, saying that he was the only one suited for the job, the only one intelligent enough. And after all, how could Voldemort resist such a handsome boy? For seventeen year old Severus Snape, taunted and ignored by his peers in turn, the sweet lies were welcome and he allowed himself to be used, to become the Death Eater spy Dumbledore wanted. He was initiated into the Death Eaters in a matter of days. It was one of the worst mistakes of his life and he vowed that no-one, no-one was ever going to use him nor Harry again.

"Professor?" came a tired voice from the bed and Snape turned. "Are you all right? I was talking to you, but you didn't seem to hear me."

"I'm fine, Harry, I was just thinking." He paused and looked at the boy. "I thought I told you to call me Severus?"

"Sorry, it just takes a bit of getting used to. You've been 'professor' for so long in my head." Harry's stomach growled, sounding obscenely loud in the quiet room. "Sorry," said Harry again.

"When was the last time you had something to eat?" Snape searched the room, but there was no food to be had anywhere.

"I'm not really sure, sir - I mean, Severus. I couldn't keep anything down anyway so I just stopped eating. It seemed easier that way."

"Well, Fudge?" demanded Snape. "Is your hospitality so lacking that you'd allow your perfect weapon to starve? He won't be much use to you if he's dying from hunger, will he?"

As he finished speaking, a plate of sandwhiches and two glasses of pumpkin juice materialised on the table. So it appeared that the room wasn't warded against magic, just magic performed by them. Snape filed that thought away, it might come in handy later, although he couldn't figure it out yet.

"They can hear us?" Harry almost squeaked. He stared round the room, as if expecting Aurors to pop out from the corners at any moment.

"Of course, you didn't think they'd leave us to our own devices, did you? They have to look after their investment, don't they?"

"Investment?"

"You, Harry. In order to conceive you, research was needed. Magical research is expensive and time consuming, the Ministry footed the bill."

"Then the money my parents left me..."

"Is yours. That money was from your Potter grandparents, nothing to do with the Ministry or any of this. You were Henry Potter's only grandson and he was determined that you would have no money worries once he was gone. Your money is magically protected, only you can touch it, or someone of your free choosing. Henry was a shrewd man as well as a rich one. If you were ever forced to sign away your inheritance by coercion, all the money would disappear from the vaults and be sent somewhere only you could access it. No, you needn't worry about your money, Harry. It's quite safe."

"Unlike me," said Harry, sitting down at the table and munching on one of the sandwiches. He sounded so defeated.

"You don't think you're safe, Harry?"

"No. Voldemort might kill me, or I might kill him. But what if I do kill him? What happens then? What happens once a weapon has served its purpose? I'm not a person to them, and once I've destroyed Voldemort, they will have no use for me anymore. They're hardly going to want me running around, are they? Not with bits of Voldemort inside me. They'll be too worried I'll turn into another Dark Lord. They'll kill me once I've killed Voldemort. So, no, I don't think I'm safe." Harry sighed and sipped his pumpkin juice. His eyes looked dead.

Snape just gaped at him, his mouth opening and closing like a landed fish, but he could hardly utter a sound. It had never even occurred to Snape that they might want to kill Harry if he destroyed Voldemort. But it seemed like Harry had been thinking about it. A lot. It also seemed that Harry had accepted it, that he was resigned to his fate. Snape wasn't.

Where was that rebellious, spirited boy who wandered the halls after curfew in an invisibility cloak? Sneaked food from the kitchens even though it wasn't really allowed? Explored the Forbidden Forest even though it was out of bounds? Played cat and mouse with Filch?

"Harry, you're the Boy Who Lived, the rules don't apply to you, remember? Are you just going to sit here and let them do this to you? They've used you, betrayed you. Are you just going to let them go ahead and kill you too? The rules don't apply to you. So you're not authorised to use magic in the Ministry, when has that ever stopped you before? You don't follow the rules, Harry. You break them."

Snape watched as Harry's eyes slowly brightened with some inner, jade fire. They gleamed like jewels as Harry listened to Snape's speech. Harry was listening eagerly to every word Snape spoke, as though Snape's words held the power of the universe in them. And maybe they had, for Harry pushed his chair away from the table, it clattered to the ground behind him.

Harry stood in the centre of the room, his arms outstretched, like he was summoning something. He was, Snape could feel the power crackle in the air as it flowed toward Harry. Harry was calling the power to himself, draining it from the very air, the very earth itself. Harry wasn't just a magician or a wizard now. He was the power, the magic itself. Harry's cloak swirled about him in an unseen wind and Snape could feel every hair on his body stand on end as he felt touch a fraction of that power touch him. He wasn't frightened, but he guessed that Fudge and the rest of his minions should be. Nothing would be able to stop Harry now. Harry even seemed taller, then Snape realised he was floating six inches above the floor.

Harry's face was glowing, he was smiling, enraptured. Snape had never seen such happiness on the boy's face before.

"Can you hear me, Fudge?" said Harry in a voice that was louder than loud, older than time itself. Snape was in awe. "Can you hear your weapon? Oh, but I'm not supposed to speak, am I? I'm not supposed to have feelings. I'm not even human to any of you, just an abomination you created. And that you want to destroy. Well, you won't. I'm not going to take it any more.

"I've been abused, I've been raped, all for the common good, I'm expected to sacrifice myself for the common good too, right? It's what I was born to do, how you all hoped to mould me into your perfect little tool. I've news for you Fudge, I'm a seventeen year old boy, a selfish seventeen year old boy. It is selfish of me, isn't it? I want to live, I don't want to help you.

"Do you know what happens to metal when you temper it too much? It goes brittle, it snaps. Congratulations, you can tell Dumbledore and anyone else who wants to know, that the pressure was too much. I've snapped, Fudge. I've sacrificed enough. AND. IT. ENDS. NOW!!!!"

Snape was hurled from the table in the force of the power, deaf and blind as he landed on the floor, the bright light and the booming sound the only two things he was aware of before the world went completely dark.

When he finally opened his eyes, he discovered himself in the last place on earth he ever expected to be.

Part Fourteen