Resort 12

Not Slytherin. Not Slytherin. Not Slytherin.

“Is there something more you wanted, Harry?”

Opening his eyes, Harry found himself staring straight at Dumbledore, who was seated serenely behind his desk, glasses perched low on his nose.

“Headmaster?” Harry looked around the office, forgetting for a moment why he was there.

“Harry, when I mentioned we could continue the meeting at a later time, I meant days hence, not minutes.”

“The meeting? The leaving conference?”

“What other meeting is there, Harry?” The light blue eyes narrowed a fraction, as the headmaster gazed intently at the rather dazed looking student. “You don’t look so well, would you like me to call Madame Pomfrey.”

“No!” Harry shouted, why was everyone always trying to send him to the hospital? When he realized the harshness of his response, he amended. “Sorry, no. I’m fine; I must have just forgotten what I was doing for a moment. You know…the stress of the end of the year and all…”

“I see… Well, you are welcome back to talk whenever you wish, Harry, my boy.”

“Right…Thanks.” Harry walked towards the stairs, feeling a strange sense of déjà vu. On the third step down his saw his laces dragging on the stone, he dropped down on the stair hastily enough to likely bruise his tailbone, and then compulsively double knotted both sets of laces. Hands still shaking softly, he dropped his head down, chin to chest, taking a few deep breathes. He was back. At least, he thought he was back. Harry lifted his head and unbuttoned his robe, revealing a white school shirt overlaid with his normal maroon cardigan and red and gold tie. Gryffindor colours. He was back.

He waited for all the memories to go away. He remembered exactly what Severus had said. One potion would erase the hidden memories. One potion would get rid off the memories he had amassed from his time as a Slytherin. He still had those memories. He remembered being Draco’s best friend, he remembered his relationship with Severus, and he even remembered the taste of the muffin he had eaten this morning with Severus at the breakfast table. He remembered Severus, period. The way he tasted, he way his bed sheets felt, Severus fucking him into the mattress, Severus proposing to him, Severus, Severus, Severus…

Memories Gryffindor-Harry was not supposed to have. Harry tried to ward off the panic. Everything was going to be okay. Perhaps the Sorting Hat’s powers were simply faster than the potions effectiveness. Yes, it would kick in any moment. Yes, any second, all those memories would fade. Any second now…

Harry took a calming deep breath, and then another. And another. Nothing was happening. The memories didn’t even seem to be waning. After a few minutes on the stone steps, Harry pushed himself up and then made his way down the rest of the stairs. As he walked out into the hallway he immediately saw Hermione and Ron waiting there, leaning against the wall opposite the archway to the stairs chatting quietly to each other.

“Hermione! Ron!”

“Har!” Hermione smiled brightly, a quill twisted in her hair, knotting half of it at the back of her head. “How’d it go?”

“Bloody, awful eh?” Ron chimed in, seeing the exhausted expression on Harry’s face. “Did Dumbledore give you that horrid, ‘where is your life going?’ speech?”

“My life’s not going anywhere…” Harry said softly. “My life’s not going anywhere!” Harry repeated with more excitement, he really was back.

“Oh, Harry, it’s not all that bad.” Hermione said quickly, misinterpreting the cause of Harry’s slight unbalance. “I’ll sure if we all put our heads together we can come with something that you might wish to pursue…”

Harry grabbed Hermione’s upper arms, “I’m back!” Harry then pulled her into a tight hug, kissing her squarely on the lips. “I’m back. And I love you! You’re my best friend. You too!” He then did the same thing to Ron, throwing his arms around the redhead, although the kiss Ron received did fall on his cheek, not mouth.

“Sheesh, Dumbledore must have done a real number on you.” Ron said, extracting himself from Harry’s enthusiastic embrace.

“I have to go see Severus now!”

“Severus?” Hermione questioned. “Professor Snape, you mean?”

“Yes. Professor Snape.” Harry found the formal name felt rather wrong coming off his tongue now. “Snape… Severus… Sev… But I’ll be back soon. Merlin, I missed you guys!”

Harry raced off down the hall towards the dungeons. He had to make every moment count, just in case the potion was slow acting and it was only an indeterminate length of time before all the Slytherin memories did in fact disappear. As long as he remembered there was hope to change things.

Hermione and Ron stared after him, slightly perplexed. Ron’s brow scrunched with confusion. “He missed us? He was only gone like 10 minutes…”

XxxXxxXxxXxxXxxXxxXxxX

Harry had only gotten to the top of the stairs when he was waylaid from his course, seeing Draco coming up the stairs flanked by Crabbe and Goyle, he could also see Blaise in the shadows a few steps behind.

Unthinkingly, Harry stepped into Draco’s path. “Draco!”

The blond sneered, and Harry could practically hear his teeth grit together. Oh, yes, there was no doubt this was his Draco.

“What is it, Potter?”

“I wanted to talk to you alone for a second.”

Crabbe snickered and Goyle snorted, elbowing each other immaturely.

Icy, grey eyes flashed with distain. “I doubt you have anything to say that I want to waste time listening to.”

“I just wanted to say…thank you.” Harry lowered his voice, indifferent to the small crowd they had. But he was fairly sure they could all hear anyways. He continued on, figuring this was more important that his pride. He just keep seeing Draco’s face as the blond begged him to stay as his friend, and recalling in his mind he and Draco exchanging blood, declaring their allegiance to each other. “For all you did for us during the war. I know it couldn’t have been easy for you… what with your family situation. I just wanted you to know you did good. I mean, I think you are good, when it comes right down to it. And I’d like…I’d like it if we could try to become friends. A fresh start.”

There was a slight quiver to Malfoy’s jaw. “Really, Potter, me and you, friends?” The slender blond’s eyes lit with excitement. “I’ve always prayed this day would come…but I never thought I would get so lucky. Oh, we’ll just be the best of friends.” In an instant his eyes froze, rolling mockingly, and his expression hardened with malevolence. Harry could see the other boy had also drawn his wand, holding it at the ready by his hip. “Fuck off, Potter. I don’t need your pity, and I don’t need your pathetic gratitude. It’s too little, too late. Just because I refused the Dark Mark, doesn’t mean I have any attention in becoming one of your spineless, simpering followers. So, get your revolting scarhead out of my way.”

Draco pushed by him, followed my Crabbe and Goyle who looked for a second as if they were going to add their own shoves, but decided against it, knowing full well that provoked Harry’s magic could flatten them in one second flat.

Blaise lingered behind slightly, his dark eyes raking up and down Harry. “If you want to give me that gratitude, Potter, I’ll gladly accept. You know where to find me…”

Oh, that went splendidly, Harry derided himself, watching the Slytherin walk stalk again. Unfortunately, he had no disillusionments that it would go any better with Severus.

Harry felt his hand shake as he lifted it to rap at the door to the Potion Master’s office, Snape’s classroom had been empty. When there was no answer after the first two knocks, he sighed with frustration, and turned away – only to practically run into a solid, black draped chest. Lifting a hand to steady himself, he felt a familiar strength and form under his palm and knew at once it was Severus he was touching. Startled his head lifted, glasses slipping down his nose, mouth parted only because he forgot to close his lips.

Severus mouth was also open…and moving. He was snapping impatiently, something about watching were one was going, Harry wasn’t really listening. He was thinking. Thinking about the taste and feel of those lips, the feel of this chest when it was bare instead of clothed under his hand, how the sparse and scratchy hair on it felt against his back.

“What is the matter with you, Potter!”

Finally something penetrated his muddled thoughts, and Harry focused on the looming figure and the fact his hand was fisted in the material of the front of Snape’s robes. He quickly opened his hand and stepped back.

“Sev…”

“Professor Snape!” The older man corrected with distain, swooping around Harry to enter his office.

“Of course. Professor Snape.” Harry pressed on. “I needed to talk to you about something.”

“I have never been a lucky man…” Severus grumbled under his breath.

“Pardon me?”

“If I had been a lucky man - it would have turned out that you were simply lost in the dungeons and not purposefully seeking me out, for what I can only imagine is completely tiresome and incredibly unwarranted grounds.”

He should have known it wouldn’t be as easy as ‘Hey, Severus, in an alternate reality you love me and we shag – a lot – and so I think we should get to know each a bit better. Maybe go down to the pub and split a pint.’ Perhaps it would be best to find about the potions he had ingested first. Try to find out exactly how long it would be before they took effect and the memories disappeared.

“I need to ask you about potions. Two potions in particular.”

“There is nothing you need to know about potions. I know that because you are no longer in my potions class. And I know that, because I haven’t had to clean up after your exploded caldrons in over a year.”

“One was more of a foggy greyish blue, the other was like a cloudy white.” Harry ploughed on, interrupting the discouraging diatribe. “The purpose of the potions is memory expurgation.”

“Stellar descriptions, Potter.”

“Please, Professor… Anything you might know…”

Snape sighed heavily. “If you bothered to pay attention in any of my classes your first six years here…”

“Professor!”

Snape ran his finger over a row of books stopping at a title he liked, he pulled the book free. “Icatrius. Page 329. It is a potion designed to eliminate only repressed memories. Memories even the subject cannot unlock him or herself. It is a murky bluish grey.”

“And the white potion?”

Severus expression was unchanging. “There are no white potions which tamper with memories.”

“Are you sure? It tastes like…milk and chalk…”

The black eyes flickered with something that that might like concern and then hardened in an instant. “If it looks like a dragon and sounds like a dragon…”

“Are you saying…?”

“That you drank chalky milk? So it would seem.”

“But why…?”

“Why would you do something as patently ridiculous as swallowing an unknown substance? Answer: because you’re fool hardy, gullible, and ex-tr-eme-ily dim witted.” Harry saw a flicker of concern again, and then saw it masked with disgust in Snape’s gaze as he stepped around his desk, approaching Harry. “What were you thinking? Have you learned nothing over the last few years? Gained not ounce of sense through your brushes with death? Is that really all the Dark Lord needed to do, hand you a poison and sit back and watch you drink it? Do you really make it that easy for someone to harm or kill you?”

“I don’t just go around taking potions, unless they are from someone I trust.”

“Why would someone you trust make you drink milk and chalk? Lie and tell you it was a potion? Who was this person? And why did you need a memory potion in the first place?”

You. “A friend.” But why would you have done this? You must have known what would happen, that I would come to you for answers. Oh, Merlin, Severus, why?

Severus stared at him for a moment. “You’re pathetic.” The book flew across the table, smacking into Harry’s chest, Harry reached up and pulled it out of the air. “Take the book, look up any information you need and return it later. Before you do so, go straight up to see Madame Pomfrey, make you haven’t made yourself sick.”

“Wait.” Harry hesitated. “I have to tell you something first –”

“No. Just no. Don’t you understand?” Severus approached, roaring harshly, backing Harry towards the door. “The seven years of purgatory are over. I don’t ever have to deal with your problems again. I’m free. So, just get out of here, Potter!” At this a gust of power pressed into Harry’s chest, sending him stumbling back the last few feet through the doorway and the portrait swung shut in his face.

Harry slowly collected himself and started to make his way back towards the stairs. He was so distracted by his own thoughts he didn’t see the older man coming until the polished silver head of a cane shot out in front of him, tapping his chest.

“Why if it isn’t little Harry Potter.”

Harry’s head jerked up at the overly cultured tones. His whole body bristled as he looked up at the elder Malfoy, his voice dripping with distain. “What are you doing here?”

“Does a caring and concerned father have to have a reason to come visit his son at the end of term, to make arranges for his heir’s homecoming?”

Harry felt the bile rise in his throat. He wished fervently someone had been forced to kill Malfoy in battle, as it was he had been captured alive and no matter what changes the Ministry had tried to pin him with, nothing had stuck. Even with the collapse of the Dark Lord, the Malfoy name still carried an immense amount of power and influence. Enough to get a known Death Eater set free.

But it wasn’t the Death Eater thing, Harry was surprised to discover, that feed the majority of his hatred now. It was no longer Lucius’ wartime activities; no, Harry instead found himself furious to be faced with the man who had hurt Draco Malfoy, who abused his own son, and used him as a pawn against the Light.

“And what’s this? A little light ready?” Lucius reached out and pulled the book forward slightly to read the title.

Harry felt his heart stop and then restart a moment later, hammering painfully in his chest. Not because the older Malfoy had rudely snatched the book, but because the hand that touched the book was decorated with a thick gold ring engraved with two snakes forming an SS pattern. Harry dragged the book away, glaring fiercely with rage, an emotion he was no longer feeling, no all his antagonism had been swamped by the shock. “Get out of my way!”

“My, such a temper.” Malfoy scoffed with a pinched and snake-like smile, moving away.

Harry started blindly down the hall in the opposite direction, but didn’t take more than a dozen steps before he turned back…just in time to see Lucius disappearing into Severus’ office.

He felt a very odd, very unfamiliar pain in the vicinity of his chest. And were those tears? Angrily, he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, pulling himself together. After all, it wasn’t really as if he had lost anything. You can’t lose something you never really had to being with!

He had made his decision, he had wanted to come back. He wasn’t supposed to be feeling this way, because he wasn’t supposed to able to remember what could have been…

Furiously, Harry threw the book across the hall; quite disappointingly, it merely hit with a soft thud and slid to the ground. As he stalked over to pick it up and throw it again, he noticed a slip of paper sticking out of it. Unthinkingly he flipped it open. The paper was marking page 329, the Icatrius potion Snape had mentioned. Harry skimmed the page. Just as Snape had explained it was a potion designed to erase memories that had been naturally or magically suppressed. Nothing new was to be learned from reading this book, and with a heavy sigh he removed the bookmark and closed the tome. The second his fingers touch the slip of paper, however, words appeared.

Shakily, Harry read to note in Severus’ familiar scrawl.

You are probably now wondering why the potion I gave you didn’t work. I’m counting on you being clever enough to come to me for answers, which will no doubt lead you to this book, and this, my parting note.

You’re probably shocked you can still recall your brief time as a Slytherin, and what's more, if all goes as planned, you should be able to remember the memories you relived during your time here. You will never be able to bring back any of the other memories that were hidden. Those are gone for good, for the Icatrius potion was genuine, to protect you from physical harm.

I don’t know if you will thank me or curse me for this.

But I had to find some way to make sure my Harry was not completely lost forever. I hope you understand.

And, this is the important part, stop letting the idea of who you should be effect who you are. Not everything is black and white, Brat, not everything is right or wrong.

XxxXxxXxxXxxXxxXxxXxxX

“What are you doing up here, Harry?”

Harry turned his head around to the side, just able to see Hermione and Ron walking up from behind him out of the corner of his eye. “I always come up here when I need to think and escape everything.”

“Really?” Hermione asked softly, leaning up against the railing where Harry sat. “I never knew that.”

Harry shook his head, staring straight ahead but relishing the feel of Hermione’s familiar warmth against his side. “I didn’t either.”

“What does that mean?” Ron questioned, pushing down his fear of falling to carefully climb over the edge to sit himself down on Harry’s other side.

“I only just found it out.”

Hermione’s brown eyes darkened in thought, she wasn’t about the hop the railing as the boys were doing but she did lean her elbows on it, pressing a little closer. “I thought you said you always come here?”

Ron’s grip on the ledge was so tight his knuckles had turned white, but all of the focus was on Harry now, his voice measured. “What’s wrong Harry? Talk to us.”

“Is this how you saw your life?”

Hermione and Ron exchanged looks around him, before Hermione answered honestly, “Unexpected things happen, Harry. Especially around you, it would be fair to say. I didn’t grow-up thinking that one day I would be a witch, that I would be friends with a boy who lived when he shouldn’t have, that the last few years would be filled with all the danger and deception of a fantasy novel. So, no, Harry, this isn’t how I saw my life. But I wouldn’t change anything.”

“But have you ever wondered what your life might be like? If things had gone differently?”

“Merlin, Harry. You can’t regret the choices you’ve made.” Ron insisted. “I know it’s scary to be moving on. But you can’t worry about what’s happened in the past. The only thing you can worry about is what happens from this point on. So you’re not where you want to be now, you will be once you figure out want you want.”

Harry’s smile was hollow. “And what if it’s too late?” Harry asked, picturing the thick gold ring on Lucius Malfoy’s finger and the look of hatred in Draco’s eyes, and the younger Malfoy’s all too accurate words ‘too little, too late’.

“Bloody ‘ell, you’re Harry-fucking-Potter,” Ron nudged him softly with his shoulder, unable to pull his death pull off the railing, “If you want it, I’m sure you can make it happen.”

“Right now, at this second, I’m right where I want to be.” Harry wrapped one arm over Ron’s waist, the other going around Hermione’s shoulder then smiled crookedly...

“Hey, remember that time in third year that…”

See, not too bad, Harry’s going to be just fine.

This story is definitely over now, but like I mentioned before if there is enough interest, I'd enjoy writing a sequel. If not, I’m sure you can imagine how Harry is going to use his newly discovered Slytherin side to get his Sev, and his Draco, because the way I picture it Harry definitely gets his happy ending one way or another. And of course, drives Severus mad along the way!

Thanks, for all the wonderful reviews!