Harry Potter: Go To Hell

Now older and wiser, Severus knew it was luck really that all of them hadn't lost their souls to the spells they were studying back then. Since there was no way any of them could simply ask a teacher at this school to help them prepare themselves adequately they'd studied out of books in out-of-the-way classrooms and practiced what they read about whenever they found a few unwatched moments to do so.

They'd had to use out of the way abandoned classrooms because Lily and the Marauders were Gryffindors and if they'd been caught using the dungeon rooms by his tower mates, every one of them would've seen his study mates as free and easy targets to practice their own spell work upon. Especially Lily as she was a first generation witch.

But maybe they hadn't because of the reason for which they were learning the information. Intention was ninety percent of all magic after all and their intentions had been good. Even back then, they had sought to protect. Not harm. Peter clearly had slipped the farthest of them though Severus had fallen as well.

Though he and Black had never gotten along and truly hadn't been able to abide each other, he and James had buried the hatchet well enough to be able to study together. And Black had helped to explain some of the spells Severus was trying to teach Lily and the Marauders because Black did have a background in Dark Magic even if he did everything he could to disavow his family line. But like Severus and Lily, Black had understood that to defeat the dark you had to know what the dark could do. And recognize when they were.

And so, when Severus had lost his way to the lure of the power of the Dark Arts, Lily had refused to give up on him and she'd convinced James he was worth the effort of saving as well. Black wouldn't hear of trying to help him and Remus had already stopped coming to their study sessions. Peter wasn't able to do much at all really which was probably why none of them had noticed his slide to the darkside. So it was just Lily and James fighting against the lure of the dark arts pulling at him. The two had worked around the clock pulling him back and he had been fighting it with everything he had. For his friend. For her. Because she wanted him to fight it. And that was a good enough reason to him.

Still, it hadn't been until he learned his Master was planning the deaths of his friends because of their child that he'd truly returned to the light. Until that revelation he'd been caught between the two forces. Not really dark but not light either. Much like he was today as a matter of fact. Only now he felt no pull to practice dark magic. He just understood their reasoning and could sympathize with them.

Witches like Granger and Weasely made it all too easy to understand their point of view. And because of that, he found he could do dark spells just as easily as he could do the light spells. Unlike most those who fell to the dark arts, Severus had fought tooth and nail clawing his way back to the light and now he considered himself to be neutral. A grey warrior if you will. Which was why when the Ministry was looking for a Guardian/Protector for Potter, he'd agreed to fill the role.

But back then learning the Dark Lord would attack his friends just to kill their baby on the remote possibility that said baby would be his downfall was the eye opening shock he'd needed to realize the Dark Arts weren't for him. He wasn't into infanticide but especially not due to some drunken crackpot uttering a few nonsensical words in a tavern. And definitely not when that baby he wanted to kill was the son of his only lifelong friend and her husband who had believed in him when no one else gave a damn.

So even though he'd lost his friends without ever having been able to tell them of his recovery, he vowed he'd protect their child for them. Because they weren't here to do it themselves. No matter what he had to do or who he had to go against. He would protect Harry James Potter until his own death. Because Harry was all he had left of them.

 The last people to actually believe in him as a good and trust-worthy person in his own right. Because he was well aware Albus didn't truly believe Severus wasn't still a devotee of the Dark Arts. Albus might have a use for him, but he didn't believe Severus was as light as any other wizard on his side. Which was actually true but not in the way Albus meant it. But Lily and James had believed in him and just as it had been then, it was still good enough for him now.

Albus might think he was the reason Severus wasn't lost to the light as other Death Eaters were. But Severus knew it was Lily and James Potter who'd saved him. Not Albus Dumbledore. Because it was they who believed in him. Not Albus Dumbledore. And it was Harry he fought for now. Not Albus Dumbledore. Or the Dark Lord.

...

But what it meant for the here and now, was quite simple really. Severus knew beyond any doubt, Harry was twice the Light wizard either of his parents had been. If he knew any Dark Magic spells, he only knew them because they had been used against him already and what did it say when the entirety of the Light side sought to teach him Dark Magic through having it used against him simply so they could refer to him as a Dark Wizard and sneer at him behind his back? How being the victim of dark magic users made him a dark wizard Severus didn't know but he'd heard more than once how because Potter had been exposed to it, that meant he was a dark wizard himself.

Severus knew not one person in this world really gave a hoot about the child but until this year he hadn't really cared one way or the other about that. In fact, it had been a source of private amusement for him. But now, following the boy around the Castle during his free time and having trusted members of his house do so when he couldn't due to other obligations, he knew that was really a very sad thing.

 The boy was just a child. A very lonely child. But still. Nothing more than a child like any other with no one in this world who cared about him. Unlike other children his age, Potter didn't spend his free time playing games or gossiping. He spent it reading. Learning from books a child his age shouldn't be interested in.

Following the Potter child around was also good for his trusted Slytherin children as they were also coming to see the child rather than the myth. For some of them, coming to see Potter for who he really was, was an eye-opening experience that showed them no matter how bad they had believed their own lot in life was, there was someone who had a worse lot. Because all of them saw the truth. Potter had no one.

 Absolutely no one who cared for him. Sure, there were people who liked him and always had been. But they didn't care for him. He couldn't go to them with his problems or when others were giving him a hard time. He had no one in that capacity. And never had, really. Not since Lily and James had died.

And it was proven by the fact that no one seemed to have even noticed that beautiful owl of his hadn't come back to the Castle with him this year. And Severus grudgingly admitted the boy loved that owl. Probably more than he loved anything else in this world. In either world, really. She didn't judge him or make demands of him. She didn't steal from him unless it was his bacon off his plate.

Or try to lead him into confiding in her just so she could betray him as soon as he turned his back on her. She didn't hurt him just so she could laugh at how weak he was to have gotten hurt in the first place. And she certainly didn't try to kill him or get him killed. No, Harry loved his owl because she was safe for him to love. And how very sad was that when a fifteen year old boy would only allow himself to care for an animal because he knew the animal was safe to care about while people weren't?

...

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