7

CHAPTER SEVEN:

When Severus appeared in Potter's living room holding the hand of a house elf, the sight that met his eyes was not one he had expected. The young man sitting on Potter's couch was clearly Potter himself, but the man's appearance had changed – again.

Severus thought back to the dirtied and bloodied man that had appeared in the Dark Lord's throne room, looking like a fighter but acting like a member of the Inner Circle, then to the sobbing man with the haunted eyes later the same evening. Then he had not seen the man until he had showed up in front of his door two days later, clothed in black robes that had to him conveyed a sense of mourning. Now, not three hours later, the man looked like a pure-blood prince welcoming him to his manor.

"You clean up surprisingly pretty, Potter," Severus drawled, hiding his surprise when the other man laughed in response.

"Why thank you," Potter replied, his eyes still shining with laughter as he walked up to his visitor and held out his hand. Severus took it and shook it firmly, considering the enigma that was Harry Potter.

"We have only three hours until the Order meeting," Potter said, releasing his hand and gesturing for him to take a seat. When they were both seated, the man continued, "I wanted to invite you to use Legilimency on me."

It was all Severus could do to keep his jaw from dropping. Had Potter truly just given him permission to search his mind?

"Veritaserum would be fine as well; whichever you prefer. I'm sure you have many questions, and you are the only person I trust to know everything. We only have three hours, and that might not be enough time to cover everything we need to, but it's important that you know what my position is in this war. I'm sure that seeing me play both the loyal Death Eater and Golden Boy in quick succession was confusing." Potter grimaced, and Severus kept his face carefully blank. Potter was absolutely right – Severus had doubted the strange man, unsure which side he really was on. However honest his breakdown had seemed, his acting in other situations had seemed too realistic for him to assume the honesty in any of Potter's actions.

"Legilimency, then," Severus said curtly, not trusting himself to say anything else. Was he truly the only person Potter trusted to know the truth? He wanted to make a cutting remark about his mutt godfather, but something stayed his hand.

"Okay," Potter said, settling comfortably and maintaining eye contact. "Whenever you're ready, then."

Before he could question it any further Severus raised his wand and intoned 'Legilimens', expecting to crash into Potter's mind as he did during the Occlumency lessons with the younger Potter. To his surprise, his mind hurtled forward to find... nothing.

"This way," he heard Potter say, then felt himself pulled forward slightly. Before he could react in any way, he was in Potter's memories, seeing things from Potter's eyes. "Fifth year – this year," Potter said as Severus watched himself sneer and cast 'Legilimens' at Potter. Switch of scene, he was looking down at Potter's hand writing lines, the words 'I must not tell lies' cutting into the back of the fair skin. Potter raised his head, and Severus saw Umbridge's satisfied smile. "Yes, Potter?" A shake of the head before the boy ducked his head to continue writing.

Change of scene – Black being tortured in the Ministry. "A vision that Snake Face put in my head; a trap," Potter said softly, sadly. Umbridge's office, the Golden Trio trying to reach Black and the house elf saying that Black wasn't there. The Inquisitorial Squad holding them captive; Severus himself understanding Potter's 'They've got Padfoot!'; Umbridge threatening them with the Cruciatus Curse. Leaving to the Ministry on Thestrals; the battle; the prophecy shattering; Black dying; the Ministry finally seeing that the Dark Lord was back. Then, the Headmaster's office – hearing the full prophecy. It was the first time Severus heard the full prophecy, and he was filled with honest respect when he realized that Potter had managed to tell the Dark Lord a false prophecy even under all the stress he had faced that night. "Neither can live while the other survives," Potter echoed in his head while Potter in the memory wrecked the office. One last memory, of Potter at his relatives' house – and Severus was shocked to see how the famous boy lived – locked in with bars on his window and no mail from his friends, his godfather dead.

"It got worse starting there," he heard the sad voice. After that Potter took him through the following years, until Severus had to admit that it got much worse indeed.

The revelation of Horcruxes; visions of the Dark Lord's doings; Dumbledore dying; Poppy checking them all for spell and potion residue, and from his own face when he was informed that he had a love potion in his system he realized that it had hit his future self even harder than it had in this timeline. "You disappeared for a week, then returned as though nothing had happened," Potter told him softly.

The changes in personality of the people around Potter; somehow Severus wasn't surprised to find that Dumbledore had locked away Granger's restraint and Weasley's more thoughtful streak. It did come as a surprise when Potter started dating Greengrass, however, and even more so when neither Weasley nor Granger seemed to be against it. It was then that Severus realized that Dumbledore had purposely exacerbated the rivalry between Gryffindor and Slytherin, and the isolation of Slytherin from all other Houses. A white-hot rage swept through him, and it was only when Potter commented, "I felt the same way when I realized," that he realized that Potter had felt his emotion. Carefully dampening his emotions, he settled down to watch the continuation.

When things got much worse, Potter seemed to be sparing him the view of the dead, only commenting emotionlessly on who had died. There were glimpses of the two of them planning together, a remembered occasion of Potter talking to Medusa – Severus was intrigued to understand Parseltongue for once – missions executed and several successful rescues. Then his own disappearance, Potter trying to keep things together in public and collapsing in the safety of his own quarters. Greengrass had already been killed by then, and Potter was alone when he hugged himself and whispered "Please be alive, please, please be alive..." Another change of scene, and Severus realized that Potter had just averted his eyes from the sight of the dead Potions Master. "Show me," he commanded. He knew what Bellatrix's victims tended to look like, but he couldn't imagine himself in that way. "You don't want to see that," Potter returned quietly, and something about his voice convinced Severus that this one time, he would be better off not insisting.

Another year sped past, more names recited in that hollow monotone, until finally – the last stand at Hogwarts. Severus relived through Potter's eyes the battle, then the final moments of utter defeat, his helplessness as he saw everyone he had fought for dead or dying. The curse speeding towards him, and the horrible realization of what kind of death faced him – then landing painfully on stone floor.

Severus saw the Inner Circle through Potter's eyes, and when he felt the man push away from the memory he stopped him. "Let me watch till the end," he said, and Potter complied.

Watching the Dark Lord as Potter lied his way to freedom, gaining a new understanding of his master through the Boy-Who-Lived's eyes, was fascinating. He had always found it hard to read the Dark Lord, but Potter seemed to be able to read his every emotion through those red eyes. Severus was both relieved and strangely disappointed when Potter was unable to read his former professor's emotions when the time traveler told him that it was good to see him alive. Watching as Potter killed Lucius was enlightening as well; he had wondered at the time how a Potter could kill somehow with that delighted smile on his face. Feeling Potter's satisfaction and seeing a flashback to Bones' broken body dispelled all his doubts, though he still had conflicting feelings at the sight of his sometimes-friend lying dead and bleeding.

When they revisited the memory of Potter breaking down in front of Hogwarts he understood Potter's reaction completely, having seen himself the sight of the final stand and comparing it mentally to the untouched Hogwarts grounds. It shocked him to feel how much Potter appreciated his touch while the man sobbed into his own hands, and how much his dark gaze grounded the time traveler to the new present. Hearing again that he had been regularly given a love potion hurt just as much as the first time, but he felt somewhat guilty for abandoning the younger man when he saw how difficult it had been for Potter to make his way to the Room of Requirement.

Potter skipped the following two nights, which Severus assumed he had mostly slept through, only showing again the scene before Dumbledore arrived and the subsequent conversation. Severus was gratified to feel Potter's shock when the Potions Master had actually obeyed the command to sit, and felt strangely touched that this man considered him his equal. The conversation with Dumbledore was enlightening as well – it seemed that Severus was better at reading the old man than Potter, but the young man's acting abilities were worthy of his respect. The way he sounded as though he was about to cry when actually his voice was trembling from suppressed anger was masterful.

When the memory drew to a close Severus began to withdraw from Potter's mind, but stopped when the young man spoke. "No, wait; I want to show you some of the past as well. Maybe then you'll understand Harry better." As Severus was drawn into a memory of Potter's childhood he wondered why it didn't seem strange to hear Potter speak of himself as another person.