"Stop being so childish. I can't hunt up your heart's desire either, not unless I leave you alone here, which I will not do."
"Conjure them!"
"Your faith in my powers notwithstanding, Potter, I can't."
Harry gaped. "You can't?"
"It is heartening to see you so shocked at the notion that I can't do everything," Snape sneered, his disdain for the whole topic clearly evident even in Remus' tones. "But no, I can't."
"Then get someone from the Order to go collect them!" Harry shouted. "Now!"
"I don't much care for your tone, Potter!"
Harry wasn't about to give an inch. "I don't care at all for yours!"
"This is descending to something rather infantile," Snape drawled, contempt lacing every word. He glared at Harry, then turned his back. "Stay here, do not move. And control your hysteria. I will get you to this funeral, much good will it do you."
Harry flopped back into bed and told himself that when all this was over, he didn't care if he never saw Severus Snape again.
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The day was cold and wintry, storm clouds brewing in the south, the cemetery cast in long afternoon shadows. Harry shuddered as he stood in the distance, watching the burial progress. Wind whistled in his ears so that he couldn't make out the words of the hymn the mourners were singing, but that was all right. He just wanted to watch, and know that he was brave enough to bear the sight.
They'd ended up missing the funeral proper. Snape had deemed the parish church too small to afford any hiding place, and had caustically asked Harry if what he really wanted was to cause a horrid scene at an event which should appear, to all intents and purposes, sacred. He hadn't been amused when Harry had suggested using an invisibility cloak, but then again, Harry hadn't been joking. If the charmed cloak hadn't been back in his trunk at Hogwarts, he'd have used it. Too bad an Accio charm wouldn't work on something all the way in Scotland. He wondered if it might, for someone like Albus Dumbledore.
Or Voldemort.
The burial service ended, Harry watching from behind a tree as one by one the mourners wandered across the rolling lawn to cars parked a short distance away. Mrs Figg was among them, and a few other people he recognised from the neighbourhood. Uncle Vernon and Dudley were the last to leave. Father and son, mourning together, shaking slightly, the older man's arm encircling the boy's shoulders. Harry wished he could walk over to them, and say again that he was sorry, that he hadn't known it would come to this, that he'd only wanted to help.
He knew better than to make that speech, but standing there behind the tree, clutching Remus' coat around himself, he mouthed the words, and told himself that would have to be enough.
Snape was eyeing him. "Are you all right?"
No, I'm not all right. She's dead, dead. And it's my fault. And my hip hurts something fierce, your damned Helasbreath elixir is lousy! It doesn't even work anymore! And she might not have loved me, but she did raise me, and I owe her something, don't I, for taking me, letting me stay even after the Dementors attacked Dudley to get to me? And I can't even attend her funeral except by skulking around! No, I'm not all right!
"Yeah, fine," Harry answered. He peered out into the distance and saw that the Dursleys had left. "I want to go up and see the grave."
Snape frowned, but answered that he'd felt no darkness there save that of grief.
"You . . ." Harry gulped. "Wait here, then. I want to be alone."
"I will not be far," Snape assured him, shivering a bit. Harry didn't think it was from fear.
"Here, take your coat back," he offered, starting to shrug out of it.
Snape shook his head. "It is Remus' coat and he would rather you have it, if you are cold."
"No, that's all right--"
"I would rather you have it, as well," Snape announced. "Go."
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Harry found the grave restful, and couldn't help but think that was rather wrong of him. He knelt before the gaping hole, looking at the mound of freshly turned earth beside it, and tried to think of what to say to Aunt Petunia.
The cemetery stopped being restful then, and his voice hurt when he spoke.
"You were supposed to love me," he started, trying to think his way through the tangled emotions choking him. "I was just a baby, and it wasn't my fault I got left on your doorstep. It wasn't my fault I wasn't a Muggle! Did you know how much I tried to stop my magic, to be something you could love? But you were supposed to love me no matter what, you were!" He paused, smearing a palm across wet cheeks. "I guess you knew I didn't love you, either. I guess it doesn't matter, now, but I didn't hate you . . . well, not the way you hated me. I didn't want it all to end like this, leaving Dudley without his mother--"
A sob climbed up from his belly, because he knew what it was like to wish for a mother who wasn't there.
The talking wasn't helping, Harry decided. It was just making him more upset. He knelt a while longer in silence, hugging Remus' coat to himself. It was more than warm, now; it was comforting.
Twilight began to paint the graveyard grey.
Harry stood up, realizing that Snape must be freezing, must think that Harry was positively daft to kneel here for so long, and all over a woman who'd never meant much to him while she was alive.
"You!" a voice came charging over the lawn as he rose to his feet. "How dare you! Come to laugh, to desecrate her grave?"
Before Harry could so much as run, Vernon had felled him with a vicious swipe across the face. Harry flew several feet before crashing to the ground, stars spinning behind his eyes, familiar rage sweeping him, rage that required an outlet and would find it.
But nothing exploded from his soul; no accidental magic stretched forth to save him. Vernon was stomping towards him, fury consuming his features, his fat jowls shaking with it. And Harry was thinking the hell with the Decree, I'm not going take this, not this time. Reaching into his jeans pocket, Harry brandished his wand with confidence as he roared, "Petrificus Totalus!"
But nothing happened, absolutely nothing. Vernon Dursley didn't even quail in fear. He just kept coming, screaming about Aunt Petunia and Harry and unmitigated gall.
"Petrificus Totalus!" Harry shouted again, pulling all his powers into the hex, the wand an extension of his furiously pointed hand. An impotent extension; once again, no force flowed through him to erupt from the wand. "Immobulis!" he tried. "Impedimenta Forneo! Serpentsortia! Avunculare Evanesco!"
Vernon was nearly on him when Harry began scrambling backwards, flailing in his panic. "Exilio Fumare!"
And then magic exploded around him, a shower of liquid greenish sparks that boiled the air as a low boom of thunder shook the ground beneath his feet. Vernon fell face-forward with a deafening thud, and Dudley ran up from behind to scream at Harry, "What did you do? All we wanted was another minute here beside my mum! I told you not to come, I told you!"
Harry somehow swayed to his knees, then looked down at his wand, which still lay cold and useless in his hand. It wasn't his magic that had stopped Vernon, that much was clear.
Snape shimmered into view, just steps away, and Harry stared, and weakly told his cousin, "It wasn't me, it wasn't mine, I didn't do--"
Then Snape started to say something, but it was just a rush of noise to Harry. He fainted dead away, collapsing to the grass with his head at the Potions Master's feet.
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