Snarry One Shots

He Who Lives More Lives Than One

Summary: Harry is in trouble again. When immortality is forced upon him, there is only one person who can help. Severus Snape, the wizard who refuses to die.

Ships: SeverusSnapexHarryPotter

All credit goes to Anonymous on Ao3

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Harry Potter knows better than anyone that wizards who die don't always stay dead.

He refuses to believe that Severus Snape is gone, when Kingsley Shacklebolt announces that Snape's body was removed from the Shrieking Shack at seven o'clock in the morning on 2 May 1998.

He still refuses to believe it when he attends the modest funeral held close to Snape's family home. He keeps a careful distance from the handful of mourners, watches the coffin lower into the ground and scans the cemetery for signs of anything out of the ordinary.

When Snape is finally exonerated from all wrongdoing and posthumously awarded an Order of Merlin, First Class, Harry attends the ceremony in nice robes and dances with a dark-haired stranger. He falls asleep that night dreaming of Polyjuice, Animagi, masquerade balls and the countless ways a wizard can turn into themselves into somebody else.

Snape's dramatic fake burial—and endless rumours about the wizard who cannot die—have all brought Harry to this moment. Alone on Hogwarts ground several years after the war, Harry stares up at the Whomping Willow which thuds to the ground before its branches stretch with a shiver, reaching towards the winter sky. Taking his chance, Harry dashes forward and pokes the knot on the trunk, the wood gnarled and twisted with age. The tree heaves as if drawing in a breath and then stops moving altogether, not one single leaf fluttering in the breeze.

Harry ducks into the entrance to the secret passageway, casting a quiet Lumos as his heart beats rapidly in his chest. It's the first time he's been anywhere near the Shrieking Shack since the Battle of Hogwarts. With the Shrieking Shack proving so useful to Voldemort and the Death Eaters, he's fairly certain that the path between the school and the Shack has been permanently closed, much like the broader labyrinth of hidden chambers under Hogwarts were methodically shut down in the months that followed Voldemort's defeat.

Harry, however, has little interest in bringing back old memories by revisiting the Shrieking Shack. He has his eye on a different location entirely, one he's already tried to access in disguise, by air, by street and by hammering on the door until his knuckles hurt. He's banking on the fact that a lesser-known tunnel from the Whomping Willow to an abandoned pub in Hogsmeade is still open.

"When all else fails," Harry mutters. He takes a narrow turn, having to drop onto his knees to crawl through the small space and hopes to hell he doesn't have to stay on his knees the whole way to Hogsmeade. It seems apt that Harry should be spending the summer hols digging around like a ferret in mouldy old tunnels for a dead man. Despite taking on the no-longer-cursed Defence Against the Dark Arts position at Hogwarts, Harry's Auror intuition—and general fondness for trouble—has not been quelled by a career change. He rubs his neck, pulling a face. It's fair to say things have got decidedly worse.

Harry's starting to think trouble is following him around. Shortly after his induction meeting with the rest of the Hogwarts staff an uncontrollable copy of Pillywhistle's Fun With Magical Creatures left Harry battling a rogue Boggart and a family of Doxies in the Restricted Section. A month or so later Harry just happened to be in the greenhouse collecting ingredients for his class when Neville's particularly aggressive batch of Mandrakes started playing up. He swears he got Spell Elbow from casting so many Ear-Muffling Charms in quick succession. As if that wasn't enough, when asked to cover for Hooch on short notice, he accidentally grabbed a Bronco Broomstick from Wheezes instead of his trusty Firebolt. After bucking him in an ungainly path around the castle, it finally flung Harry on his arse, right in the middle of a group of startled first years. It's enough to make Harry think the universe is conspiring against him, not to mention his pointy little problem.