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Chapter Text

“Do you think he’s alright up there?” Sirius turned to his boyfriend, referring to Harry, who was playing quietly in his room.

“I’m sure he’s fine- we haven’t really heard a peep out of either him or Severus all summer- they’re just fairly quiet people,” Remus soothed, a hand on Sirius’ arm.

“I still can’t believe Severus Snape has a room in my house,” the dog animagus sighed.

“And yet, you’re okay with it, because you knew it was either give him a room or deal with ten floo calls a day whenever he’s staying with us where Severus tries to act nonchalant but is clearly panicked about him being here with, quote, ‘no supervision to speak of,’” Remus raised his eyebrows, although whether his unimpressed, sarcastic look was directed towards his boyfriend or their third co-parent, Sirius couldn’t say.

“Hey, I’m not complaining,” he shrugged.  “If that’s what it takes to have Harry happy and in our lives, I’m okay with that.  And at least we get the house to ourselves when Harry and Severus go back to Hogwarts on weekends so he can see his ‘Aunt Minnie.’”

“Speaking of Severus- where is he?  Nobody’s come in to check on our parenting skills for the past twenty minutes- should we go make sure he’s alive?” Remus chuckled as he put an arm around his partner.

“He went to look into why Harry hasn’t been getting his mail,” Sirius reminded him, reaching for another of Kreacher’s freshly baked muffins, but the elf slapped him away.

“These is being for little master Harry,” he scolded.  “I be taking them up to him while he is in his room.”

“Check on him while you’re up there and see what he’s doing, would you?  I’m a little concerned- if it had been his father, we would have heard explosions by now, and even Lily didn’t stay so quiet for so long,” despite Remus’ reassurance, Sirius couldn’t help but worry.

“I’m more worried about the mail thing,” Remus worried his lip between his teeth.  “The rest of us are getting ours just fine,” he added, opening a letter from Narcissa.

“Oh thank Merlin,” he breathed a sigh of relief, “Narcissa’s finally won official full custody of Draco- she had to give up claim to seventy-five percent of the Malfoy fortune, and Lucius got the house and the elves, but he’s never going back to him, so that’s all that matters.”

“Well, I think that Lucius realised he wasn’t going to win that battle when he showed up at her flat with a squadron of security trolls to demand to see his son and the wards nearly bounced them halfway across Diagon Alley,” Sirius snorted, still remembering the headline in the paper.

“Too bad they couldn’t at least get Dobby, though- Draco really loves that little elf,” Remus sighed.  

“Arthur’s been keeping him too busy to really think about it, though- he’s been teaching him about cars, letting him help with this Ford Anglia he’s got in the shed.”  Sirius sent a prayer to… wherever such things went that his little cousin had taken such an interest in muggle things, as it kept his mind off of all the craziness in his personal life this summer.

Kreacher came downstairs just then, interrupting their conversation with an update on Harry.  “Little master is being all snuggled up in the window seat with a book, and Kreacher thinks he’s likely to fall asleep for a nap time soon,” he informed them.

“It is about time for it,” Remus looked at his watch- if they weren’t out and about, Harry usually did fall asleep for an hour or two around eleven a.m.

“Ugh!” Severus stepped through the floo, looking very embittered as he brushed ash off his robe.  “I haven’t had any luck with finding out what’s wrong with the damn mail,” he sighed angrily.  “I ended up just going to all his friends and collecting their letters for him, since something is clearly wrong.”

“Well, at least he doesn’t feel unloved or unwanted since we realised there was a problem- imagine if he was still… still there,” Sirius swallowed around a lump in his throat.

“Don’t even talk about it,” Severus growled and angrily bit into an apple from the fruit bowl.  “I don’t want to think about what might have happened- somehow I doubt the mail would have been the biggest problem.”

“Shhh,” Kreacher ordered.  “Little master has his head leaning back against Fluffy, and if Fluffy comes to check on the noises, he will disturb little master’s rest.”  Unlike the rest of the household, Kreacher clearly had no problem sternly bossing the potions master around.

“Sorry,” Severus apologised gruffly, as even he wasn’t about to cross Kreacher (or wake Harry up, for that matter, which was really his bigger concern).

“What should we do for his birthday?” Remus asked the other two men as Severus continued angrily (but more quietly) crunching his apple.

“Well, my first instinct would be a big party, but I know he’s still kind of shy about a lot of fuss being made for him, so maybe just a dinner with all his friends here?” Sirius suggested.  “We could have all the first year Slytherins and Neville, and all the Weasleys of course. Get him a lot of presents, obviously, and a cake- three layers, chocolate, obviously…”

“That’s actually a pretty good idea, mutt,” Severus interrupted before the cake could get any larger.  “I must admit it still shocks me when you have one.”

“My mind healer says you’re just trying to rile me up because it’s fun for you,” Sirius rolled his eyes.  “So it’s really a far greater satisfaction to take that away.”

“You’re much less fun since you started going to therapy,” the Slytherin groused.  “Messing with you is one of very few joys in this bleak life, and then you go and get a therapist.”

“You seem to think that all I do there is complain about you,” the Black lord said, “but really that’s only a very small percentage of it- most of it is, you know, the whole ‘ten years in Azkaban’ thing.”

“Such a pity, to not be the greatest bane of your existence,” Severus quipped back sardonically.  “My life’s goals have crumbled to dust.”

“Try being married to him,” Remus joked, but there was fondness in his eyes as he looked at the man who was his husband in all but the legal records (because, you know, homophobia…).

“I’d rather die.  Repeatedly.”

“The feeling is mutual, I assure you,” Sirius responded, but they were both fighting back laughter.

“Did mutt master eat Kreacher’s slippers again?” The elf called from the kitchen, unamused as he carried a pair of chewed-up, slobbered on bunny slippers and shoved them under Sirius’ nose.

“Er, sorry… Padfoot’s been kinda naughty lately… I’ll buy you some new ones… again,” Sirius put his hands up placatingly.

“Damn right you will!”  Kreacher put his hands on his hips, giving the dog animagus a look eerily reminiscent of Molly Weasley when she scolded her children.  “And mutt master be needing to control himself, or Kreacher will be making him go outside every time he changes.”

“I’m never going to be the master of my own house, am I?” Sirius sighed as the little elf went back into the kitchen to continue preparing lunch.

“I’m going to put Harry’s mail outside his door,” Severus told them.

“Don’t wake Fluffy, or he’ll wake Harry,” Remus hummed over his newspaper.

“I think Fluffy would sooner disembowel me than pull Harry out of a peaceful sleep, but I will be quiet, yes,” Severus rolled his eyes at the man.

“Did I miss anything?” Harry came down about an hour later, dressing gown trailing behind him as he sleepily rubbed his eyes.  The adults waited until his emerald orbs were open enough to read their lips before they told him that no, he hadn’t.

“Did you get your mail, child?” Severus asked, and Harry nodded.

“I haven’t opened it yet, though- I wanted to see if you needed any help with lunch first,” he told them.

“Harry luv- you know you don’t have to worry about doing chores here- you’ve done enough of those in your lifetime,” Sirius told him as he bent down to kiss his godson’s messy curls.

“I know… I just…”

“Takes some getting used to, huh?” Remus asked sympathetically.  “That’s okay cub- we’re here for you, as long as it takes. Now why don’t you go see what your friends had to say while we finish getting the food out, alright?”

“Okay,” Harry nodded shyly and smiled at him before padding back up the stairs.

Kreacher came out, oven mitts almost up to his shoulders as he put the pan of casserole on the table and Severus carried the salad out, and Remus brought a nice hot blueberry pie.  Kreacher made a special effort to make large, nutritionally balanced meals that they all ate as a family, to make up for the years of starvation of both food and affection that his little master had experienced.  Sirius balanced a tray of lemonade, tripping and almost dropping it while Severus cast a levitation charm to save the drinks.

“Next time, you carry the salad,” he rolled his eyes at the Gryffindor.  Harry came back down, dressed in a thick jumper, jeans, and fluffy socks, his heightened sense of smell bringing him to the table before they even needed to call Fluffy to bring him.

“Is it too cold in here, pup?” Sirius signed to  godson, concerned about how warmly he was dressed in the middle of summer.

“Eh, I’m always cold,” Harry shrugged, but while his head was turned away, Sirius told Kreacher to make it warmer inside- the rest of them would just have to take a layer or two off.

“Good job, buddy!” Remus congratulated when Harry managed to finish his small serving of food.

“Uncle Moony, I’m eleven- you don’t need to congratulate me for clearing my plate,” Harry protested, but he was smiling and blushing.

“So,” Sirius began cautiously, but they’d all agreed that it needed to be asked, “we were wondering if you had any friends from your muggle school that you’d want to invite for your birthday dinner- we could put a glamour on Kreacher, make him look like a little old butler.”  They’d hate for him to have his first real birthday since he was one without any of his old friends.

“I get a birthday dinner?” Harry looked at them in surprise, as if they’d told him they’d just bought him his own castle.

“Of course, cub- we could do a party, though, if you’d rather.  We just thought a dinner might be something you’d like…”

“No, a dinner is perfect!”  Harry beamed at them, and they all felt a warm pang in their hearts, even Severus (although he’d deny it if the other two asked).  “I don’t have any friends from muggle school though- Dudley wouldn’t let anyone be friends with me.”

“Well, you’ve got lots of friends now who realise how lucky they are,” Severus said firmly, surprising the other two men a little with the open display of affection.  Harry, however, seemed fairly used to it by now, as he merely smiled widely and took his plate to the sink (he didn’t get very far before Kreacher took it from him and sent him back to the table, however).

Harry was taking a nap on his birthday while the rest of them set up for the party when they heard a crash and a yelp from upstairs.  They traded terrified looks and rushed upstairs to Harry’s bedroom, where he was pressed up against his headboard, staring wide-eyed at a house elf that was not Kreacher.  When he saw the other three adults, he disappeared rapidly, leaving behind only a note that said Harry Potter must not go back to Hogwarts- Grave Danger.  

“Wha- what does it say?” Harry crawled towards the end of the bed as Severus picked up the note and handed it to him.

“Why doesn’t he want me to go back to Hogwarts?  Wh- he just showed up when I was taking my nap.”  He swallowed anxiously around a lump in his throat.

“Shh, it’s alright cub,” Remus smoothed the hair away from his forehead, but it flopped right back into place.  “I don’t know how he got here, but we’ll check the wards and layer more on if we need to- I’m sure it was just someone ordering their elf to try to scare you.  Don’t worry- we’ll keep you safe, alright?” Harry was still shaking a bit- he’d woken up from a nightmare to see a strange elf at the end of his bed- but he nodded, and Remus pulled him into his lap and pat his back gently to help him calm down.

Meanwhile, Severus was casting multiple spells on the parchment.  “There’s nothing spelled on it- no portkeys, curses, no malevolent magic of any kind.  That’s very strange…”

“It doesn’t really make any sense- it must just be a scare tactic from some ex-death eater or something,” Sirius groaned, poking at the parchment with his own wand.  “We’ll just have to keep a good eye on you this year. And we have Severus, Fluffy, and Norbert watching you…”

“I still don’t like it,” Severus mumbled.  “Didn’t that elf look kind of… familiar?”

“I didn’t get a good enough look at him to really see,” Sirius answered.  “I mean… maybe he seemed familiar from your spying days?”

“I… it’s possible, but still unsettling.”  Harry’s eyes rapidly tracked the conversation.

“Well, what else can we do but keep him well protected?  It’s not like he can just not go back to school,” Padfoot ran a nervous hand through his hair again.

“Don’t worry about it, Harry,” Severus signed to him.  “We promise everything will be just fine- we’ll keep you safe.”

“Okay,” Harry took a deep breath.  “I… I trust you guys.”

“Thank you, Harry- we know that it’s not easy,” Remus put a rough hand over one of Harry’s smaller ones.  “Now, why don’t we have Sirius take you out for ice cream while we finish setting up for the party?”

“C’mon cub,” Padfoot picked him up easily to carry down the stairs, Fluffy trotting after him.  “How’s mint chocolate chip sound?”

“Happy Birthday Harry!” Ron and Hermione were the first to greet him when his godfather brought him back (they went to the ice-cream store and the arcade, and Harry was carrying a giant stuffed dog that Padfoot had won him).

“Aww, thanks guys!” Harry met his friends in a large hug.  “Ron, you’ve gotten taller!”

“Yeah, that’s what happens at this age,” the redhead teased, while Harry pouted- the ‘Harry’s height’ door between the dining room and the kitchen only had one tick mark that had stayed the same since Christmas.  Even Hermione looked like she’d gotten nearly an inch since school let out.

“Oh, don’t worry dear- maybe you’re just a late bloomer,” Molly soothed, rubbing a thumb along his cheek.  Harry’s three male parent-figures traded concerned looks- both James and Lily had shot up like weeds during their first few years at Hogwarts.

“Good evening, everyone,” Minerva stepped out of the floo, smiling at them all, but most especially Harry.  “Happy birthday, darling!” Harry received her hug gratefully, smiling when she kissed his cheek. She handed him a wrapped package, and his eyes lit up even brighter.

“Thank you so much, Aunt Minnie!” he grinned widely at her, and she ruffled his hair.

“Why don’t you open it and then tell me if you like it?” she chuckled, and he pulled the paper off carefully, almost reverently.

“Are these…?”  

“Those are the slips with the date, time, and reason for every detention your father ever earned,” she told him, and he set the box gently aside on the table before he hugged her again, tears in his eyes.

“Don’t get any ideas,” Severus told him as he carried the box up to his room to put in a safe place, arms wrapped protectively around it.

“I won’t- I promise,” he called back, Fluffy trotting after him, sizing down to fit the staircase.  By the time he’d come down again, Draco and his mother had arrived, along with the rest of the Slytherin first years.  Neville came through a moment later, and they all put their gifts on a table that had been set aside.

“Kreacher has dinner!” the elf called, carrying in a pile of pizza boxes nearly larger than he was.  “Muggle children food for special occasion!”

“Pizza,” Draco launched forward- he and his mother used to get it when his father was gone on business, and it was one of his favourite things.  Harry’d had it once, when he managed to pick the lock in his cupboard and pick it out of the kitchen trash one night (not exactly the most sanitary thing, but it had been a week since he was fed, and the Dursleys were piling on more chores than ever), but he wasn’t going to tell that story.

“How are you doing, Cissy?” Sirius asked his cousin as the students dug into their dinner, and they both smiled fondly as Harry’s face lit up at the first bite- he’d clearly not had it before, or at least not had good pizza before.

“Oh, much better- I didn’t get many of Lucius’ assets in the divorce, but it was more than enough to keep us comfortable, and I got the most important thing, anyway.”  Her silver eyes were soft and bright as she watched her son, signing back and forth excitedly with Harry. “I’m actually thinking about trying a few part-time jobs at the Muggle world while Draco’s at Hogwarts this year- try to find my interests now that I’m free to explore them.”

“I think you’d make a good hairdresser,” Padfoot laughed, looking at her artful curls, arranged in a loose top knot.  “Or perhaps a manicurist,” he added as he watched her nails, painted with a soft pink, tapped against her wine glass.

“I was thinking a sales associate at a clothing store, maybe- but those are both good options,” she laughed, high and clear like silver bells.  “So, what’s been going on with you?”

“Nothing too fancy- just letting Harry get comfortable with the house and the area and such- we took him to an amusement park last week, he had the time of his life.  There was something strange earlier, though…” He pulled the note out of his pocket, showing it to her. She gasped.

“That’s Dobby’s handwriting!” Sirius looked at her.

“Dobby as in Draco’s favourite house elf, Dobby?”

“Yes, that would be him- here, come with me for a moment.”  She pulled him into the powder room of the kitchen and cast some locking and anti-eavesdropping charms.  “Listen- you can’t tell Draco this, but Dobby is a free elf.”

“What?!” Sirius yelped, and for a moment Narcissa thought he’d channelled Padfoot.  “I- wha- how?!”

“Draco, when he was six, walked in on Lucius being particularly cruel to Dobby- yes, of course I obliviated him afterwards, don’t look at me like I don’t know what I’m doing- but the point is, he took it upon himself to free him.  He’d switched the handkerchief Lucius always carried with a sock- as you know, you have to tell a house elf to do the laundry without handing it to him, but kerchiefs don’t count as clothing, so Lucius would always hand his favourite to Dobby directly for washing and pressing.  He’d ended up handing him a sock without realising it, but Dobby decided to stay- he was too fond of Draco and I to leave us with him, protective little thing he is. My son may not have remembered the incident that sparked it, but he does remember trying to free Dobby- we let him think it came to naught, as if he knew that Dobby had stayed for him, he’d feel guilty.  The point is that Lucius still thinks Dobby is under his control, and the stubborn little elf has probably taken it upon himself to keep an eye on his… activities.”

“Dobby!” she called suddenly, and the elf appeared.  

“Yes mistress?” he shuffled from foot to foot, looking a bit guilty.

“What is Lucius up to, that you don’t want Harry going back to Hogwarts?” She asked him.

“Dobby doesn’t know- Lucius doesn’t trust Dobby.”  While he still called Draco and Narcissa Master and Mistress, he never called Lucius master when he wasn’t talking to him face to face, the ultimate sign of disrespect.  “But Dobby has been trying to find out. All Dobby knows is that Harry Potter is too good and important to go back to Hogwarts- Lucius must be trying to hurt him.”

“Harry will be fine, Dobby- we promise.  We’ll be watching him, okay?” Narcissa looked the elf straight in his tennis-ball eyes, and he nodded.

“Yes mistress,” he sighed, popping away, feeling very guilty that he must go behind her back to protect Harry Potter- as good and talented as Mistress was, she could not protect Harry from… whatever it was that Lucius was planning.

Chapter Text

“Do you have everything you need for the week?” Severus asked Harry, who was carting his trunk (with a feather light charm on it, courtesy of his head of House) with Charcoal on top of it and holding Fluffy’s leash.

“Yep,” Harry said cheerfully.  “Clothes, broom, my potions and the written instructions on how often to take them- even though I already knew-” here he stopped and rolled his eyes fondly at the professor, “my wand and everything I need for Hogwarts, and I have enough money leftover from last year’s shopping to get everything I need when the Weasleys take us all on Wednesday.”

“Oh, Harry- you don’t need to do that- here,” Sirius handed him a card.  “This is your Gringotts card- anything you need, or anything you want, for that matter- you can put on this, alright?  It’s connected to my account, but it has your name on it.”

“Oh, er- I don’t… you don’t have to…” Harry stammered.

“I want to, pup- now stay safe and have fun, okay?  We love you.” He put an arm around Remus, who echoed the sentiment.”

“I’ll just take him through the floo, and I’ll be right back,” Severus motioned, taking Harry’s hand- honestly, those two were going to let a twelve-year-old through the floo alone... it was a good thing he was there to make sure Harry stayed alive.

“Oh, hello Severus- stay for tea?” Molly greeted as they landed in the Weasleys living room.  “Thank you so much for letting us have Harry for the week, by the way- he’s such a pleasure.”

“You’re welcome, and I’ll have to decline on the tea- I’ve some time-sensitive brewing I’m working on back in my lab, so I really should be getting back to it.  Harry, have fun and stay safe,” he looked around, making sure nobody else was watching his hands at the moment, before he signed one last thing to his ward. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Harry beamed, and even his little hands seemed happy- he always loved those words, whether he was reading them off someone’s lips or their hands.  They were such nice things to ‘hear.’

“Take good care of him,” he looked back at Molly, who nodded, and he ruffled Harry’s hair one last time before going through the floo.

“Have you eaten yet, dear?  We’re just about to have lunch,” Mrs. Weasley was finally able to give him a hug, without Severus there hovering over him.

“Kreacher fed me sandwiches before I left; he’s very overprotective,” Harry laughed.

“I wouldn’t call it overprotective to want to get a little food into you, dear.  Do you think you have a little room left for dessert?”

“Oh, I suppose,” Harry relented, not wanting to disappoint her.  And he was rewarded- even if he was uncomfortably full afterwards, Mrs. Weasley’s blueberry cobbler was well worth it.

“Ronnie darling- would you mind de-gnoming the garden?  Percy was going to do it, but he says he has too much homework,” Molly looked beseechingly at her son.

“Yeah mum- it’s no problem.  Harry would probably like to see a de-gnoming anyway,” Ron smiled at her, trying to ease her worries about Percy- he’d been rather withdrawn lately, and even more uppity than usual (of course, that could be due to the fact that he, Fred and George were driving him crazy by hiding vanishing rubber chickens in all his drawers, making him question his sanity just a bit).  

“What a good son,” Molly kissed the top of his head, noting how he was almost taller than she was now (she was trying to be more openly affectionate with him- she had no idea he’d felt so insecure about his place in the family before this last year, when he was surprised to see her sitting by his bedside).

“Mum, stop it!” he protested, but there was happiness in his voice and they both knew he loved it.

“Right,” he told Harry, once he’d given him a tour of the house and they’d reached the front yard where the garden was.  “So this is how you de-gnome a garden…”
When Arthur came home from work, he found his son and his honorary son having a competition to see how far they could throw the gnomes over the fence.

“Where’s Draco?” he asked, as his other honorary son suddenly came bursting out of the shed, motor oil on his hands (and a little smeared on his nose and the bottom of his left ear) and wearing old overalls that were just a bit too big for him.

“Arthur- I fixed the radiator!” he cried, exalted.  “Oh, Harry- when did you get here?” he asked, blushing a little and pulling an old rag out of his pockets, trying to scrub the grease off his face but only spreading it around.

“I got here at lunch, but Mrs. Weasley told us not to bother you- she said that you were busy with a project and that she’d already packed you something to eat this morning,” the Iranian teen laughed at his friend as he channeled a bit of magic from the air, using it to cast a cleaning charm on Draco, since he clearly wasn’t having much luck on his own (since his method of channeling magic worked wandlessly, the ministry couldn’t track it and he could use it during the summer).

“Oh, er- I would have come out if I knew you’d be here,” he mumbled, scratching the back of his slightly-sunburnt neck.  “I kind of lost track of the days while we were working on the car.”

“It’s alright Draco- I do the same thing,” Arthur laughed and asked his three boys if they were ready for dinner.

“Yes please, Mr. Weasley,” Harry agreed politely.

“You can call us Arthur and Molly, son- after all, you’re family.”

“Er, okay,” Harry was smiling, and a vivid blush was visible on his cheeks despite his dark skin tone, “Thanks… Arthur.”

“Alright ducklings,” Mrs. Weasley said as she herded them all to the floo on Wednesday morning.  “Arthur dear, I’ll go first, so I’m ready to receive the kids, and then Ron, you can go through next with Harry, since you’re still fairly new to the floo.  And then George, you can take Fluffy through right after that, and then Fred, Percy, and Arthur can go through with Ginny- oh, and Charcoal’s outside hunting gnomes, so we don’t have to worry about her sneaking through.”

“Heya Tom,” Ron greeted, holding Harry’s hand and glaring fiercely at anyone who stared at him.  “Just off to do the school shopping- we’ll wait for my family out front with my mum.” The barkeep nodded cheerfully at them, and Harry took in all the details of Diagon Alley again, still awed by its splendor.

“We’ll just wait for the rest of the family and then head off to Gringotts.  I think we should have enough for Ron and Ginny to get new wands, as long as we get secondhand books,” she said, mentally tallying expenses.

“Here,” Harry pulled out his little bag of Galleons.  “Sirius gave me a debit card, and I have these left over from last year.”

“Oh no dear- you keep those, Molly protested, but Harry pushed the bag into her hands and closed her fingers around it.

“Please?” he begged, green eyes wide.  “I mean, you’ve been so kind to me, and you’ve fed me and taken care of me all week without asking for anything, and I want to do something for you- you wouldn’t want me to feel guilty, would you?”

“You really are a little Slytherin, aren’t you?” she asked with a chuckle, but she accepted the bag of galleons- he really did have irresistible begging power in those big emerald eyes of his.

“That’s what the hat said,” he remarked cheekily as the others came up, and Harry took Fluffy’s leash from George with a polite ‘thank you’ as they headed to the bank.

“Hullo Griphook,” Harry greeted his own account manager as they entered.

“Ah, Harry, so nice to see you,” the goblin signed, and Harry gasped in excitement.

“Yes- I’ve been working on my sign language since I found out my favourite client was deaf,” he said again, his long, dexterous fingers perfect for the language.  Fred and George, who had also been working on their BSL, looked at each other in surprise- it was highly unusual for a goblin to be so friendly with anyone who wasn’t part of their species.

“I was wondering what you would like as a name sign,” Griphook continued, for he’d finger-spelled Harry’s name when he entered.  Harry sighed.

“The librarian who helped teach me gave me this one,” he mimed a lightning bolt motion against his forehead, like a simplified version of his scar. “I don’t like it as much since I found out where I got the scar, but that’s my name.”  He shrugged, and Griphook laughed.

“Want to give me a name? - it can be as silly as you like,” the goblin offered, and Harry thought for a moment before combining the signs for ‘grip’ and ‘hook.’

“I like your name just the way it is- it would be a shame to change it,” he nodded sagely, and Griphook patted him on the head.

“Very well then- just your vault and the Weasleys’, then?”  Griphook took a moment to finger-spell Weasleys, and Harry took a moment to demonstrate the name-sign he’d given them, three fingers making a sharp downward motion from his chin.

“Nope- just the Weasleys- Sirius gave me a debit card,” Harry signed, demonstrating the name-sign again, and Griphook nodded.

“Oh yes- his estate manager was notified that you were to be granted access, I’d just forgotten for a moment.  Are you ready to ride the cart?” Griphook smiled, knowing how much Harry liked riding it last year (unlike Hagrid).

There was a small pile of knuts, a few sickles, and a single galleon in the Weasley vault, and Mrs. Weasley swept them all in.  Harry was glad they had accepted his bag of galleons- it would be enough for Ginny to get new robes at least, and they wouldn’t have to get all their books second-hand.

“We should go to Ollivander’s first,” Arthur suggested, knowing that his youngest two biological children were eager for their wands.

It only took Ronald three tries to find his wand (and Molly couldn’t help but remember that 3 was a significant number for the old fire elementals- 3, 6, and 9).  The wand itself was willow, fourteen inches, with a unicorn hair core.

Ginny was a bit trickier- she didn’t find hers until try number 13, and it was a yew wand, 9 ¾ inches, with a core of dragon heartstring.

“Ah yes, dragon heartstring- sturdy, bonds strongly, can be just a bit temperamental.  This wand says much about you, Ms. Ginerva, just as Ronald’s wand tells us that he is loyal, dependable, and with great potential, although a bit insecure.”  Ron blushed, and Molly shot a glare at the man as she payed.

“Don’t pay him any mind dear- he’s a bit batty anyway,” she reassured her son.

“He said some funny stuff to me too,” Harry reassured his best friend.  “He said…” He switched to sign language. “Well, he said that my wand was a twin to Voldemort’s.”  Despite the serious conversation, the name sign they’d given the dork lord always made them laugh (they made a scissor-like chopping motion in the nose-area).  “I don’t think it means anything though- at least, that’s what Severus said.”

“Yeah- Ollivander is weirdo,” Ron agreed.  “I wouldn’t worry about it, mate.”

“Thanks,” Harry signed.  “And I don’t think you’re overly-insecure- at least, no more insecure than the rest of us.”

“Thanks mate,” Ron laughed.

“Hey!” Ginny called out, and Fluffy nudged Harry, pointing one large head towards the girl, and Harry looked so he could read her lips.  “How about slowing down a bit- some of us are still working on our sign language.”

“We can talk out loud now, it’s no problem,” Harry laughed, relieved she was so much more comfortable around him than she had been when they’d first met.

“Alright, we’ll meet the rest of you at Flourish and Blotts’, Molly told them, pulling Ginny into Madame Malkin’s, and the rest of them found Hermione and her parents at the bookshop as well.

“Mia!” Harry ran up to her and hugged her tightly, and her parents looked on in amusement- tiny, Iranian pre-teenager that looked like he was 8 or 9 instead of twelve… yep, this must be Harry.

“Hello,” Jean Granger signed to her daughter’s best friend.  “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Hi,” Harry waved endearingly at her.  “I’m Harry, but as you’re using sign language I’m guessing you already knew that.   This is Ron.”  He pointed at her daughter’s other best friend.  “And this is Draco,” he said the blonde’s name out loud while signing the word for dragon, his name sign.

“It’s very nice to meet all of you,” she said out loud.  “I’m Jean, and this is my husband Dan.”

“You’re muggles, aren’t you?!” Arthur asked, practically overflowing with enthusiasm as both he and Draco pressed closer to the Grangers.

“Can you tell us about TAM’s?” the second-year Slytherin asked them.

“He means ATM’s,” Hermione translated helpfully, as her mum and dad began trying to simplify the idea for the wizards.

“Who’s that tosser?” Dan suddenly broke off to ask, looking at the blonde man in the violet robes at the front of the store, from where a long line snaked back.

“Dan- be polite!” his wife smacked him on the arm, but Ron just rolled his eyes.

“He’s right- Gilderoy Lockhart is a tosser,” the redhead agreed, and Mrs. Weasley began to scold him a bit, until of course the man spotted Harry.

“Oh- if it isn’t Harry Potter- lovely to see you, old chap!” the man boomed, but he made no effort to turn his face towards Harry so he could lipread, thus surprising the boy when he tried to grab him for a photo.  Harry pulled back, startled, and Gilderoy bounded forward again to try to grab him, despite Harry’s clear dislike of the concept, and Molly Weasley pulled back her handbag and smacked him across the chest with it.

“He said no!” she scolded him, all her previous fondness for the man and his works gone.  “Now get back!” Lockhart, getting the message, retreated fearfully from Molly and her tenacious handbag, which was heavy with the weight of homemade fudge, a first-aid kit, and an emergency sewing kit.

“Thank you,” Harry tugged on her robes, and she looked down at him fondly.

“Never a problem, dear,” she told him, as another catastrophe in the form of Lucius Malfoy entered the store.  Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny all formed a protective barrier in front of Draco, who had started to tremble.

“Ah, Arthur, buying your books- how long did you have to go hungry to pay for those?” he sneered, before he caught a flash of Draco’s blonde hair hiding behind the other children.

“Oh, and you’ve added my son to your band of street urchins… I see my ex-wife doesn’t have the same expectations of him as I did… shame she got full custody, then.  Oh well, I’ve tried my best- if Draco turns out to be a nothing like the rest of your children, it’s none of my concern now. I’ve washed my hands of him.”

“You were never a father,” Arthur snarled, angrier than his children had ever seen him as he pulled back a fist and punched Lucius Malfoy in the nose.  “You don’t deserve Draco!”  Soon, they were both wrestling on the floor of the shop, wands lying aside, forgotten, as Harry pulled Draco to the side and tried to calm him down.

“It’s alright,” he signed.  “Arthur’s right- nothing your father said is true, Draco- believe me.  And look- there’s somebody who loves you so much he’s getting in a fight in the middle of a store on your behalf.”  Draco gave a half-hearted smile but otherwise didn’t react, not even when Hagrid pulled the two men apart, not even when they left the store to go back through the floo.  He was silent for hours, even as a young Colin Creevey was with his muggle parents later in the afternoon, getting his books for his new classes that he was so excited about, when he found a diary stuck between two of the Gilderoy Lockhart books he’d bought.  He showed his parents the way it wrote back to him, and they smiled.

“That’s nice, Col,” his father told him.  “It’ll be like you already have a friend.”  None of them realised, poor things, that what Colin had just gotten was the farthest thing from a friend.  

Chapter Text

“I can’t find my socks!” Ron groaned on the morning of September the first, as they all scrambled to get ready.

“Fluffy?” Harry turned to his service dog, who hung all three heads in shame as he led them to his dog bed, where a pile of slobbery socks rested.

“Gross!” Ron grunted as he picked one up.

“I got it,” Harry sighed, channelling some of the magic from the yard and directing it to clean Ron’s socks.

“Thanks mate- don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Probably not have a cerberus stealing your socks in the first place,” his friend pointed out, but Ron just reached out and gave him a hug.

“You’re worth it.”

Draco was going to the platform with his mother, so it was just Harry and the rest of the Weasleys as they all ate a quick breakfast and packed the car, and the green-eyed preteen couldn’t help but notice that the trunk held a lot more than it should have.

“Undetectable extension charm- Draco’s idea.  Don’t tell Molly,” he whispered conspiratorially, and Harry giggled.

He was just waving goodbye to the Burrow for the summer when they were back, as Fred and George had forgotten their filibuster fireworks.  Then Fluffy started whinging because he’d forgotten his favourite squeaky toy, and while Harry insisted they didn’t need to go back, Arthur turned the car right around while Harry told his dog not to pull all of his things out of the trunk next time if he didn’t want them forgotten.  The point is that by the time they pulled into London, they were running very, very late, and they located an empty parking spot in King’s Cross with only fifteen minutes to spare.

It was a mad dash to make it to the platform, and due to some people who stopped them to heckle Harry about his service dog (Arthur ended up just breaking some rules and casting a few discreet confundus charms on them, wishing he could give them a few good hexes as well), they only had three minutes by the time they got to Platform 9 ¾.  

“Arthur, you go first with Ginny,” Molly said, and he did so, followed by Percy, the twins, and then Molly herself.  They had a good minute and a half when Harry queued up his trunk, took off at a sprint, and headed towards the platform.  They still had a bit over a minute when Harry hit the platform head-on, but Ron wasn’t thinking about the train as he ran up to his friend, turning him over to find that he had a compound fracture in his right arm, his shoulder looked dislocated, and he was unconscious, a large bruise on one side of his brown face.  He pushed his hand at the platform, hoping to get an adult to help, but he hit only solid stone. Panicking a bit but shoving it down, and thankful that there weren’t many people about, and that none of them were looking at the two children and the three-headed dog with two trunks and an owl in a cage, he rushed back towards the parking lot, hoping his parents would be at the car and able to help them.

“No- no, no, no!” he yelled, when he couldn’t find them anywhere.  “Mum! Dad!” he called desperately, but to no avail.  They were alone, and Harry was bleeding, looking paler by the moment.

But Ronald Weasley, thankfully, was a Slytherin, and Slytherins didn’t just shut down when things got tough.  They made plans.  

“Okay,” Ron whispered to the empty lot.  “We could send an owl- no, that would take too long, and we can’t wait for mum and dad- they could be anywhere, looking for us.  I don’t know enough about muggle hospitals to be sure that Harry would be okay there, and I don’t know how to even call one on the fellytone.  He needs Madame Pomfrey, and he needs her fast.” He thought for a moment.

“I’ve gotta take the car,” he decided, looking at Fluffy.  “Get me some parchment,” he ordered the service dog. “And a quill.”  When the faithful creature did as required, he scribbled a quick note.

Mum and dad,

Platform was blocked- don’t know why, but Harry got hurt.  Can’t get him to wake up. Need to get him to Pomfrey’s. Took the car- don’t worry, I’ll use the invisibility booster.  I’m sorry- I just don’t know what else to do, and you’re not here.

Love,

Ron.

“Here,” he let Hedwig out of her cage.  “You stay here and wait for mum and dad.  I gotta get Harry help.” Fluffy helped him get the trunks into the car (thank Merlin he’d been there- he’d also gotten the trunks to the parking lot while Ron carried Harry).

“Okay… I don’t know where the keys are, but there’s a spare set in the glove compartment… I’m really glad Fred and George taught me to lockpick,” he muttered to himself as he stuck the end of the quill he’d been using into the keyhole and jiggled it until he felt the tumblers click.

“Invisibility booster- alright, we can do this, right Harry?  Top speed of a Ford Anglia with these modifications is 200 kilometers an hour.  You’ll be fine until then, right?” He knew his best friend wasn’t conscious, and even if he was, that he wouldn’t be able to hear him anyway, but it helped him stay calm, to act like he was awake and that this was just an adventure and not a terrifying race with someone he cared about lying injured in the passenger side.

He shoved the car into gear, into the sky as fast as it could go.  He didn’t know where the train was, or even where to find it, but the train was too slow anyway- he needed to go faster.  “Alright, magic- please, please do your thing,” he begged, and he felt relief as the car went a little faster.  “Get us to Hogwarts.”

He looked at Harry again, who had lost even more colour.  “Come on- wake up,” he shook him gently, then a bit more forcefully, trying not to jostle his injuries.  Harry groaned but didn’t wake, and his head lolled to the side like that of a rag doll.

“Well, it is September first- hopefully I’m allowed to do this,” he said to himself, pulling out his wand.

“Epipsky!” he roared, using the only healing spell he knew, which wasn’t enough, but it was something.   “Epipsky!  Epipsky, epipsky, epipsky!”   He kept up the chant until his tongue was dry enough to stick to the roof of his mouth as he casted and his head felt wooly.  Harry’s bruises had faded a bit, and his breathing had evened out, so Ron took that as a good sign, keeping up the chant even though his mouth cried out for water and the temperature in the old ford skyrocketed, the car going too fast to leave enough power for the AC.  Ron found a few toffees in the glove compartment as well, and he forced them down to keep his energy up as he continually cast the basic healing spell until sweat covered his entire body like a second pair of robes and spots began to cloud his vision.

All the while, he kept urging his magic to make the car go faster and keep the invisibility booster from breaking, and thank Merlin it listened.  Harry’s eyes fluttered open once, briefly, and this spurred Ron into working twice as hard. He’d stripped Harry of all his clothing save his boxers to keep him cool, and while the scars covering his body that he knew must be from the Dursleys filled him with a righteous anger, he pushed the cause to the back of his mind and used the emotion to power his magic as he continued pouring everything he had into keeping his friend’s condition stable.

It felt like days, but was really only about an hour and a half, before the Hogwarts grounds came into view, and Ron’s parched throat let out an exclamation of relief of its own accord.

And then the car sputtered.  Then it collected itself for a minute, then sputtered again.  Ron had been pushing it too hard. Fluffy whinged as they began losing height, and Ron tried to force it back up by sheer force of will, but he was too exhausted.  The car kept descending, and finally the engine gave one last spit of exhaust before cutting completely, right on top of the whomping willow.

“Fuck no- please!” Ron cried as he and Fluffy both wrapped their bodies around Harry’s to protect him, but the universe had apparently decided it had already been kind enough to Ronald Weasley that day, as they fell against the tree, the branches beating mercilessly into the sides of the car.  Ron felt his head take a good knock, and his vision spun, but he only held tighter to Harry as another branch knocked into his right shoulder and he felt something crack.

“Now would be a good time for the fire,” he whispered, sticking his hand out the broken window.  “Merlin, even if it kills me, just burn down the goddamn tree!” Ron blessedly felt his body heat up, but not in an unpleasant way- rather, he felt more comfortable now than he had all day- and he willed the fire to the side facing away from Harry, directing it all towards one hand and out against the tree, which shrank back in indignation, dropping them.  The Ford Anglia bounced against the ground once, twice, three times before dropping them, but between him and Fluffy, Harry was fairly well cushioned.  The same could not be said for him, and Ron felt the sharp metal from the driver’s side door, half detached from its frame, digging into his back, and the wetness of blood that was much hotter than blood normally was spilled from his skin, but he ignored it.

“Help!” he yelled, as loudly as he could, and Fluffy added to the chorus the barking of all three heads.  Thankfully, they landed near the lake, which was near the Slytherin common room, which meant Severus Snape could hear the commotion from where he’d been grading in his quarters, and he came running out just as the beat-up Ford ambled off on its own into the forest, spitting out their trunks and Hedwig’s cage as it went.

“What in Merlin’s name?!” Severus barked, before spotting his two clearly-injured students, Harry still unconscious, and he rushed towards them.

“Platform… blocked…” Ron rasped, spitting up actual ashes, and Severus blanched and filled a conjured glass with water from an augmenti charm, handing it to his snake as he sent his Patronus to Poppy.

“Thanks,” Ron choked out, voice slightly less raspy as Severus took care of the goose-egg on his head and the cut on his back- the only injuries he felt comfortable tackling without Poppy and a full diagnostic.  “We… Harry and I were getting on the train, but the platform was blocked, and Harry hit it at a full run. He was knocked out and I couldn’t get him to wake up, so I ran to the car, but I couldn’t find my parents and an owl would have taken too long, so I left a note and got into the car and begged my accidental magic to make it go really fast while I cast as many epipsky charms on Harry as I could, but then the speed was too much for the car, and it crashed into the willow.”
Poppy had arrived in time to hear the tail end of the story, and as she ran a scan on Harry, she looked at him in astonishment.  “Your healing charms probably saved his life, or at the very least kept there from being any brain damage- he will make a full recovery, which I am sure I wouldn’t be saying if you didn’t act so quickly.”  She was rapidly casting a number of complex healing charms on his head wound, and Severus conjured a pair of stretchers to take them both to the hospital wing while the healer continued to work on Harry.

It was several hours before she had Harry in stable condition and resting comfortably, during which time Ron drifted in and out of an anxious, feverish sleep, his collarbone aching, but he didn’t complain.  When Poppy did eventually reach him, she furrowed her eyebrows in concern.

“Your injuries were worse than you let on,” she told the redhead sternly.  “In addition to severe magical exhaustion and a broken collarbone, you were severely overheated.  This is the second time in three months that you’ve used substantial displays of raw elemental power.  You may have the abilities of a low-level elemental, but you do not have the body of one.  You’re lucky you didn’t burn your insides to pure ash, at this rate.”  She quickly fixed the simple fracture in his collar bone while having Severus conjure an ice bath.  

“In,” she ordered Ron, while she called a house elf to bring her a gallon of water.

“You’re severely dehydrated and overheated.  You’re going to stay in that tub of ice for the next hour, and you’re going to drink three of these,” she motioned to the gallon jug, “every day for the next week.  If you and Harry both behave yourselves, I’ll let you go next Monday, provided you get plenty of rest so you can heal properly.  Honestly… why the fates seem so dead-set against three twelve-year-olds, I’ll never know.”

She looked at Ron’s tub of ice, which Ron’s steaming body was rapidly melting, and cast a number of freezing charms.  The redhead shivered, looking like he’d rather be just about anywhere else and suddenly very jealous of Harry’s state of unconsciousness, now that he knew he would be all right.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Poppy ordered.  “It’s for your own good- now drink.” She handed him a full glass of more freezing-cold water, and Ron had to force a groan back down his raw throat- this was going to be a long week...

Chapter Text

“Did we miss the train?” Harry asked groggily when he eventually came around, his arm in a sling and his head pounding.  He squinted, looking blearily at his surroundings, and his eyes landed on Ron, sitting in another ice bath and looking very, very cranky.

“Yes,” he signed, his hands trembling with cold.

“Then how…?”

“It’s a long story,” Ron, luckily, had the bed next to Harry’s, so the redhead was close enough that his best friend could lipread while he put his freezing hands under his armpits in a futile effort to warm them.  He was trying to figure out a way to tell it without making Harry feel guilty.

“Why… why are we in the hospital wing?” Harry tried to sit up, but groaned and clutched his head when he moved.  Unfortunately, he also moved his arm, which, while healed, was still weak and sore (malnutrition was a bitch).  

“Shh… just stay down,” Ron turned his head towards Harry and called for Pomfrey.  “You hit the platform when we were trying to cross- it was blocked, for some reason, so I took us in the flying car, but it died and we hit the whomping willow.”  He decided that that was more than enough information… his best friend didn’t need to know that he’d nearly killed himself trying to keep him alive.

“Yes- it was an unfortunate situation,” Poppy agreed, face turned towards Harry as she bustled in.  “Luckily, Ron was a quick-thinker and got you here in time to prevent any long-term damage from hitting a brick wall head-on at full speed.”

“Why… why is Ron here too- did he get hurt trying to save me?”  The redhead caught Poppy’s eye, his own blue ones telling her to say no.

“Oh, he just used a little too much elemental power and overheated on the whomping willow- nothing to feel guilty about, little one,” she downplayed, thankful that Ron had good childhood nutrition so that his own broken bone had healed with no complications and all his cuts and bruises were easily fixed.  “And then a bit of magical exhaustion- you should both be able to leave by next Monday,” she said, imitating a breezy tone.

“That… that’s a long time- are you sure Ron’s okay?” Harry asked nervously.

“Ron will be fine dear- I’m more concerned about you, to be honest.  How do you feel?”

“M’fine,” Harry mumbled.

“And if I run a diagnostic charm, will that confirm your answer?”

“Er…”

“Thought so,” Poppy declared.  “Here- a pain potion and something to help your arm heal.”  She handed him two phials as Severus came back into the room from where he’d been brewing Harry’s evening doses.

“Oh, thank Merlin you’re awake,” he breathed a sigh of relief, glad that Harry was conscious and lucid.

“Can I get out now?” Ron asked the nurse as she finished with Harry, leaving Severus to hover about his bedside like a nervous mama bat.

“Let me check- hmm, temperature is still 41 degrees celcius, young man, so that would be a no,” she responded flatly.

“M’cold,” he complained, as his mother, Sirius, Remus, and Kreacher burst into the room.

“Could have called us sooner,” was the first thing out of Sirius Black’s mouth, and Poppy put her hands on her hips.

“Sirius Orion Black- we were busy working on our patients and didn’t have time to deal with your panic- Severus was bad enough without adding you to the mix.”

“I was not panicking- I was expressing a normal level of concern to fit the situation,” the potions master argued.

“You were panicking,” she raised her eyebrows at him, as if daring him to argue.  He didn’t.

“Why is my son in an ice bath?” Molly asked crossly, looking at her poor, shivering child.

“Feel his forehead,” Poppy instructed, and Mrs. Weasley did.

“Oh,” she said faintly.

“And that’s after he’s been in there for three hours,” Madame Pomfrey informed her.  “He needs to ease up on the fire magic before he burns himself up from the inside out.”  Thankfully, Harry had his eyes closed at the moment, trying to block out the painful sunlight streaming in, or he would have been afraid for his friend.

“Maybe that dumb tree needs to ease up on beating the bloody daylights out of people,” Ron spat back grouchily, and Remus looked guiltily to the side.  “Too bad it didn’t burn all the way down.”  Severus was inclined to agree with him.

“Professor Sprout doesn’t think so,” Madame Pomfrey sighed.  “She’s been doctoring the damn thing all day- something about it being a ‘herbological wonder’ or some such nonsense.  I think we could use less of things that beat up children, but I suppose that’s just my profession speaking,” she muttered sardonically.

“Can I have something to eat?” Ron asked.

“Sure,” Poppy agreed genially.  “How about some ice cream?”

“I never thought I’d say this, but for the love of Merlin, no ice cream!   How about some hot soup or something?” Ron begged, teeth still chattering.

“Nothing but cold foods until your temperature is at most 38 degrees- your mother tells me that’s normal for you, even if it is a little high, so I suppose it will have to do,” Poppy harrumphed, as if she thought that even children with special fire powers should keep to a standard 37 in the interests of health.

“But I don’t feel too hot,” Ron argued petulantly.

“That’s all well and good for you, but I don’t want to find out if you’d feel it if your insides developed a protective layer of volcanic rock, thank you very much,” she gave him a stern, unimpressed look.

“I think that’d be kind of cool,” he whispered under his breath.  “Like a muggle superhero.”

“Here,” she brought back a large bowl of ice cream.  “Eat this, and then afterwards you can have a ham sandwich or something- I’d just rather you have something else very cold first.”

“Never thought I’d be complaining about eating dessert first,” he sighed lugubriously, pulling a face as the freezing ice cream slid down his steaming throat.

“Neither did I, to be honest,” his mother couldn’t help but chuckle at the irony.

Because the universe was cruel, Poppy did bring out a large bowl of hot chicken soup, but it was for Harry.  She shook him gently, pulling him out of the half-sleep he’d sunk into as she set the tray on his lap.

“I know the concussion will be making you feel nauseous, dear, but you have to try to eat something, alright?”  Harry nodded obediently as he clumsily gripped the spoon with his left hand, trying to bring it to his mouth, but his spinning head was working against him.  After he spilled the second spoonful on his lap, Severus decided his dignity wasn’t worth this and took the spoon from the child to feed him.

“Thanks,” Harry mumbled, cheeks heating up a bit.

“Not a problem,” Severus replied blandly, filling the spoon again.

“Severus,” Poppy got his attention, and he briefly took his eyes off Harry to acknowledge that he was listening.  “I need to go get some rest- that was a lot of healing I did today, but listen- Harry needs to be woken every four hours and kept awake for a full twenty minutes before he’s allowed to go back down.  I trust that you can manage it between you, Remus, Molly and Mr. Kreacher here. Oh,” she added, turning to Molly quickly, “I’m sure you’ll receive a letter about it in the morning, but I thought you might like to know now- I’ve just gotten the list of all the new first years and their houses- your Ginerva’s been sorted into Ravenclaw.”

“G-good on her,” Ron shivered. “We’re b-b-breaking the mould.”  He felt like he was suffering from hypothermia instead of running what for most would be a fatally high fever.

He was finally allowed out of his ice bath when all the students in their common rooms were heading to their beds, and he thought eagerly of the warm pile of blankets on the bed… until his mother pulled them all off, leaving him with not even a sheet.

“You’re your own personal heating charm, dear- you won’t be needing these,” she told him cheerfully, bustling over to the linens closet to put them away.  Ron curled up in the tightest little ball he could and tried to sleep, and he was just beginning to drift off when thrashing from the next bed over woke him.

“No,” Harry whimpered.  “I’ll be good… please don’t lock the cupboard.”  As each of the three men at Harry’s bedside reached out to place a soothing hand on his shoulder or his forehead or his arm, Ron remembered all the scars he’d seen on his friend’s body, which he’d managed to block out for a while with the crazy events of the day.  Now to find out that they’d locked him in a cupboard… Ron felt comfortably warm again as he heard a crackling noise and the smell of burning fabric filled his nostrils as little sparks jumped onto the mattress.

Ssssss! He was shocked out of his angry reverie by the bucket of ice water his mother dumped on top of him, as the angry fire retreated from his limbs back into the depths of his belly, settling back down into warm coals, but it still felt closer to him than it ever had before, like he could call it forward more easily.  Molly Weasley was looking at him in concern, her ginger eyebrows scrunched together, forming frown lines all over her face.

“This is not good,” she put the back of her hand against his face, gauging his temperature.  “Maybe we ought to bring in another healer, get a second opinion…”

“Mum, I feel fine,” Ron sighed, squeezing water out of his robes.  “I mean, I know Madame Pomfrey’s going on about it, but I think I’d know if my insides were burning out…”

“I… I’m just worried, Ronnie- it’s not like you to start setting things on fire.  It- there isn’t anyone here with experience on the subject, and I’m afraid… I can’t lose you, dear, I just can’t!” Molly had worked herself up into a frenzy, and her lip was wobbling as she held back a sob.

“You’re not gonna lose me mum- I promise.  Look, I’ll just… I’ll try to tell the fire to stay where it is.  I just… Harry’s nightmare, you know…”

His mother sighed.  “I know… I wish I didn’t, honestly- he’s been through far too much, especially for a child of his age.”

“We’ll keep him safe now mum- so he’ll never have to hurt like that again,” Ron swore, and he felt the fire in his belly heat up just a little with the force of his conviction.

“Hey bro- how you feeling?” Ginny stepped in tentatively the next morning in the middle of breakfast, her blue tie standing out against her pale skin and vivid red hair.

“I’m fine- a little cold,” Ron answered, shivering, from his ice tub.   You stay down, he instructed the fire, which he was feeling more and more connected to.   Or they’ll make us stay in here longer.   Chastised from where it had been trying to keep him warm, it shrank down, and it almost felt like it was pouting.  Ron started a bit- when had he started to think of his fire like a seperate, living entity?

“And Harry?” she looked at him, and he smiled at her sleepily.

“M’okay,” he yawned.  “Fluffy and Charcoal are being nice and snuggly, and Sirius and Sev aren’t fighting as much as usual, which is good for my headache.”

“It’s good for all of our headaches,” Ron agreed with an eye roll, since Severus had already had to leave for his classes for the day- he couldn’t afford to miss them, not after he’d not been there to greet the new first years last night.  Sirius and Remus had been forced by Poppy to go home and sleep, but Kreacher would tolerate no such nonsense, so he was making sure both boys were comfortable, joined by the equally formidable Molly Weasley.

“We’re very proud of you for being sorted into Ravenclaw,” she told her daughter, who smiled- she had been a bit worried, although she knew it was irrational when they’d been okay with Ron being in Slytherin…

“How’re the riddles?” Ron asked his sister curiously.

“Not too bad- I mean, I don’t know the actual answer for most of them, but you can get creative.  For example, last night the eagle asked how a raven was like a writing desk, so I said they were both words in the English language, and it had to let me in.”

“Clever- I see why the hat sorted you.  Although, with that kind of workaround, you could have fit in Slytherin just as well,” Ron told his little sister.

“It was offered,” Ginny shrugged.  “But you’re not the only Weasley who wanted to be unprecedented.”

“Or did you just wanna be with Luna?” her brother teased, and she blushed.

“Yeah, that was part of it- she’s my best friend, after all.”

“I think you love her more than the rest of us,” Ron rolled his eyes, before groaning as Poppy bought him a glass of cold milk and some frozen fruit chunks.

“No comment,” Ginny quipped, before looking at her old watch- a gift from her father, who had sized one of his down to fit her.  “But I do have to go- we have Lockhart first thing, and I don’t want to be the unlucky one who catches his attention by coming in late.”

“Hey guys- I’m so relieved you’re alright- I was ever so worried when you didn’t show up on the train, but Madame Pomfrey wouldn’t let me visit you yesterday, and this morning I woke up late because I was trying to find some literature on fire elementals and their descendants in the library, but there wasn’t anything useful and I was looking so late into the night that I slept right through my alarm and breakfast- the girls wanted me to sleep, so they just brought me something before class,” she said this very quickly, and her hands were moving quite fast as well, and it made Harry’s head spin.

“Mia, can you go a little slower? I just woke up,” Harry groaned, as Kreacher put a cool cloth to his forehead.

“Oh, sorry,” she signed, comically slow this time.

“All good,” Harry laughed a little, despite the pain it caused in his head and his shoulder.  “How was class?”

“Not too interesting- mostly note-taking and review.  I don’t think you’ll miss anything exciting this week, but if you do I’ll take lots of notes so you can catch right up,” she said, her gold-flecked brown eyes gleaming as they always did when she thought about school.

“Have you had Lockhart’s class yet?” Ron asked, and her face darkened, her nose wrinkling, causing the toffee-coloured freckles on her chocolate skin to ripple.

“Unfortunately,” she sighed.  “All he does is talk about his dumb books- he was going to have a practical lesson, but he wanted to wait until ‘everyone was there.’”

“Unhealthy interest in Harry- check,” Ron groaned.  “Are we going to have to kill another defence teacher?”

“Ronald- that’s not funny!” Mrs. Weasley gasped, but she was biting back a laugh.  Harry, luckily, was resting his eyes and missed the joke completely, or else Ron wouldn’t have told it- Quirrell’s death was still a bit of a sore spot for his best friend.

“It was kinda funny,” Sirius snorted as he ran a hand through Harry’s hair, helping him relax enough to sleep.

“It was a clever joke,” Remus agreed.  “If Severus wasn’t stuck taking care of things in the common room, I think he would agree.”

“What would I agree to?” the head of Slytherin asked as he entered, eyes moving immediately to Harry’s resting form as his mouth fell open and a little snore escaped.

“That Lockhart is a git and I might have to kill him,” Ron said.

“Oh.  Very well- I was never a part of this conversation,” he instructed, moving forward to feel the redhead’s forehead.  “Hm… still blazing like a furnace, although you don’t seem much the worse for it.”

“Thank you!” Ron gesticulated dramatically, splashing ice water from his bath everywhere, and Snape glared as he wiped the sleeve of his robe across his face.  “Try telling Madame Pomfrey that!”

“I don’t have a death wish, thank you,” Severus rolled his eyes.  “And five points from Slytherin for splashing your teacher. But 105 to Slytherin for your bravery and practicality in the midst of a crisis.  Certainly not what a Gryffindor would have done.”

“I resent that,” Sirius gave him a dirty look.

“He is kind of right though- could you picture you or James managing a situation like that at twelve?”

“You’re supposed to be on my side, Remy!” Padfoot whinged, and Moony squeezed his hand fondly.

“I am on your side- else I wouldn’t have gotten into nearly as much trouble in school.”

“Hey, you were the mastermind behind our best pranks,” Sirius reminded him.

“Only because if I left you to your own devices, your plans would have burnt down the school.”

“No, you enjoyed it.”

“Never said I didn’t.”

“Ugh, romance,” Severus made a disgusted face, and Sirius and Remus just shook their heads and sighed in unison.

“You never want to find anyone, then?” Sirius prodded, aware that he was potentially stepping into dangerous territory.

“What, so I have another person I have to compromise with, and who expects… physical contact?   No thank you,” he shook his head resolutely, and the two Marauders sensed there was more there, but they let the subject drop.

Poppy had to admit that Harry was a fairly good patient up until the weekend, when he wasn’t sleeping quite so much and started to get bored, but Ron was a nightmare… he was cold, or he was hungry, or he was tired since he was cold, but insisted he was too cold to get to sleep.  Or he didn’t like her nickname for him (which was “Red”), but in fairness, nobody liked her nicknames for them.  She had to make her job more fun somehow.  

“Alright- 38.2… still not exactly happy with it, but you seem to be doing alright, so it’ll have to do,” Poppy sighed.  “And Harry- you keep that sling on until Friday- you hear me, little one?”

“Well, not necessarily…” he joked, and the nurse immediately regretted her word choice.

“Just keep the damn sling on,” she ordered him, sighing.  These boys were going to be the death of her… and yet, she was already so fond of them…

“Yes ma’am,” he saluted her with his good arm, and she rolled her eyes again as they skipped out to breakfast, meeting Hermione at the door as they all ambled down the hallway holding hands.

“Such little darlings…” she murmured to herself.  She dearly hoped she’d be seeing less of them in her hospital in the future, but something deep in her bones told her that wasn’t the case...

Chapter Text

“Today we will be working on Mandrakes,” Professor Sprout informed them, as Harry watched the glowing gold subtitles that the teachers used when he was in one of their classes.  “Now, the cry of the mandrake is normally fatal, but as these are young mandrakes, they would just knock you out quite thoroughly for a day or two. Can anyone tell me something that we use fully grown mandrakes in- oh, yes Harry?”

“The mandrake restorative draught is the most famous usage,” he answered, and the dumpy little woman gave him five points for Slytherin.  He and Hermione shared a high-five.

“Oh, Hermione- you have another answer?”

“Well, in the middle ages, Mandrake was used as an aphrodisiac, and it still serves that purpose in some areas of the world.  It can also be used in fertility draughts.”

“You are indeed correct,” Professor Sprout beamed at her as many of the boys in the class made disgusted faces, including Ron.  Harry was pretty indifferent about it- nothing could traumatize him as much as the time he accidentally walked in on Vernon and Petunia when he was cleaning the house (or the beating he received afterwards, for that matter).  

“Today, we will be repotting the young mandrakes,” she continued, “so everybody grab a pair of earmuffs.”  Harry hung back, smiling cheekily, as everyone else scrambled for a pair that wasn’t pink and fluffy.

“Hey,” Neville came up to Harry, earmuffs around his neck and hands motioning to the sling around his right arm, “Mandrakes are pretty tricky, especially if you can only use one arm- wanna work together?”

“Sure Nev,” Harry agreed, and that was all they have time for before the Gryffindor put his earmuffs on and they grabbed a plant.  Neville held the pot down while Harry used his left arm to tug the plant up by the leafy part. A very ugly, very dirty baby-shaped root came up, squalling and shaking its little fists.

“Hello,” Harry tried, and the baby kept squealing, but poked one ‘eye’ open curiously.  “We’re just trying to get you into a bigger pot, little guy. See, nice.” He took the baby mandrake over to get a view of the larger pot, and the squealing slowed down a little.  “Doesn’t that look better than that old one, hmmm? And we can get you a nice new bed of soil. That’s right, quiet down now.” He was blissfully unaware of the entire class, including the professor, staring at him as he plopped the now-complacent mandrake in its new pot, easily picking up a trowel and piling soil into the earthenware with fluid movements that spoke of long experience.

“Alright, where’s the next one?” He asked cheerfully, and Pomona, still wearing her fluffy earmuffs, dazedly handed him another pot as Ron nursed a bite from one of the ugly baby plants.

After they’d repotted all the mandrakes (well, mainly Harry, Neville, and Professor Sprout- the rest of the class was rather wary of the little blighters), they went back up to the castle for a wash, and Harry waited until everyone else was in the shower before he applied glamours over all his scars to hide them and headed into a stall, enjoying the warm spray of the water, which contrasted nicely with the cold dungeon floors.  He was dried off and struggling to put his sling back on when Ron came up, wordlessly grabbing the straps to fasten them as he gently propped his best friend’s arm up.

“There you go,” he signed as he pulled back, making sure everything was supported properly.  “And Harry?” he stopped him as they went to leave, hands tentative. “You don’t have to… don’t have to wear the glamours on when it’s just us.  I saw the scars on the way here, when I was trying to take care of your injuries. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, and I won’t tell anyone. Not even Hermione… not unless you tell me it’s okay.”

“Thanks Ron,” Harry was blushing, but he grabbed the redhead’s hand as the headed down to Defence.

“Me,” the blond ponce began as they filed into the back of the classroom, taking a table in the back with the other first year Slytherins, Neville, and two Hufflepuff girls, Susan and Hannah.  “Gilderoy Lockhart: Bestselling Author, Order of Merlin, third class, and three-time winner of Witch Weekly’s most charming smile award.  But I didn’t get rid of the Bandon Banshee by smiling at her.”  He gave them all a flash of his pearly whites, and Harry thought he must have used so much whitening potion that you could see his teeth under a blacklight.

“You children are very lucky, of course, to have such an esteemed teacher as myself,” he continued as he paced the room, and Hermione signed along, since he hadn’t the courtesy (or, knowing Gilderoy, lacked the talent) to cast the subtitle spell the rest of Harry’s teachers used.  “I have faced off against the baddest of the bad, from the aforementioned banshee to an entire colony of vampires to freeing the Wagga Wagga Werewolf from its lycanthropic curse.”

“Excuse me, Professor?” Harry normally didn’t like raising his hand with a new teacher, especially one like this, but there was a big inconsistency here- Uncle Moony had told him, of course, that he was a werewolf, since it was kind of impossible for him to live there for a summer and not notice that they sent him to see Aunt Minnie every full moon, and he felt the need to receive clarification on the particular claim of the Wagga Wagga werewolf.

“Oh, Harry Potter- I was hoping to catch you this morning, but I didn’t see you at breakfast.”

“Sorry,” Harry said, even though he was not (and he was suddenly grateful that Madame Pomfrey had kept them until just before classes).  “Anyway, when you said that you ‘freed’ the Wagga Wagga werewolf- there is no cure for lycanthropy, so what did you mean.  Wolfsbane potion, perhaps- but then, his fur wouldn’t have shrank back, he would have just become docile.”

“Oh, Wolfsbane potion, yes- that is what I used.  The rest is just a metaphor, of course, although I cannot expect you children to understand great literature at your age.”  Harry felt rather offended, as he’d spent much of his cupboard time reading actual great literature that he’d stolen from Dudley’s trash can, and he knew enough to be quite certain that Lockhart had nothing on Shelley or Austen or even Dickens.  But he knew enough about people to know that he could talk until he was blue in the face and Lockhart still wouldn’t change his views, so he clamped his mouth shot as Hermione gave him an appreciative look.

“Anyway, you may find yourself facing off against some of your darkest fears in this classroom, but you mustn’t be afraid- I will protect you with my advanced knowledge of the subject.”  Harry looked at Ron and rolled his eyes- he’d faced both an angry Vernon and a parasitic Voldemort, so he doubted anything in this class of twelve-year-olds could be his ‘worst fear’ and he doubted even more that Lockhart had the qualifications to protect them from anything more malignant than one of Hagrid’s rock cakes.  His doubt must have shown on his face, because Pansy, from where she’d been painting her nails, snorted loudly.

“Careful- that stuff can get you high if you breathe too much in,” Blaise warned her, and it sounded like he spoke from experience.

“I know- I was the one giving you the manicure when it happened,” the slightly pug-nosed girl chuckled, as Lockhart called for silence from the front of the room.  He was holding a large bird cage with a cloth covering it and high-pitched squeaking sounds coming from underneath it. Harry, of course, didn’t have the auditory intel, but the confident smile on their ‘teacher’s’ face was already setting his teeth on edge.

“Cornish Pixies,” he revealed with a flourish, and Hermione kept signing, although Harry’d already seen what was in the cage by the time she finished, since she’d had to finger-spell (not exactly in the day-to-day vernacular of BSL, cornish pixies…).

“Don’t laugh,” he told them, sounding affronted.  “They can be nasty little blighters… but never fear- I shall handle him.”

“There’s this picture on the wall in a hallway near Gryffindor tower called Sir Cadogan,” Neville whispered.   “That’s who Lockhart reminds me of, although the knight’s a lot less obnoxious.”

Their obnoxious professor threw the cage door open, and the little blue-skinned pixies came swirling out of the cage in a tornado of chaos.

“ Peskipiksi Pesternomi,” Lockhart cried, and nothing happened.  “Oh,” he blurted, as one of the pixies hit him over the head with his own wand.

“Well, I’ll just leave you children to take care of this- practical experience, you know,” he declared in a faux-cheerful voice as the bell rang and he dove out the window after his wand.

“Fuck,” Ron gave a succinct and accurate description of their predicament as the pixies swarmed and children ran for the door, books over their heads.

“Oh!” Harry dug one-handed in his bag until he found his apple slices and yoghurt.  “Pixies love fruit- they’re like bumblebees, except not as good for the environment.”

He waved one of the apples above his head, and the pixies all skid to a stop in mid-air, zoning in on the fruit.  Harry stood on his chair.

“Would you like the fruit?” he asked them, and then hid it up his sleeve as they came for him.  “Eh-eh-eh,” he chastised. “Fruit is for well-behaved little pixies.”  The fluttered into a neat line, tiny blue hands nicely held behind their backs.

“Good,” he praised, and a purple blush sprang to their tiny cheeks as they smiled, their wee faces deceptively angelic-looking.  “Hermione, bring me the cage, please.” As his eyes were on their targets, he didn’t see her response, but he trusted that she had heard him and was bringing it, and indeed she did.  He put the fruit in the bottom of the cage, and the little creatures all streamed in after it.

“Excellent,” he commended them.  “Now, I’m guessing you came from the forest, no?”  Twenty itty-bitty heads nodded their concurrence, and Hagrid looked out his hut in the twenty minutes before lunch to see a herd of little Slytherins, two Hufflepuffs, and one Gryffindor bringing him a cage full of pixies that never should have left the forest in the first place.

“You’re late for lunch,” Severus pounced on his students as soon as they entered the hall.   “You especially cannot afford to be missing meals,” he told Harry, gently but sternly.

“Sorry Professor- we were just taking the pixies back to the forest first,” Harry explained.

“Pixies- what pixies?”

“Our assignment,” Harry clarified.  “Lockhart set some pixies loose in class and then ran away, so we had to gather them up.”  Severus’ eyes narrowed as he looked at the head table, where Gilderoy’s constant smile seemed to falter a bit.

“I’m just going to go have a conversation with your Aunt Minnie about this new… professor,” he sneered the word.  “Drink your potions and try to finish at least two sandwiches and a piece of fruit, alright?”  Harry nodded genially as they all sat down at the Slytherin table, ignoring some of the strange looks directed at Neville, Hannah, and Susan.

“So,” Harry downed his last potion with a grimace and poured a glass of pumpkin juice to wash the taste away.  “Anyone wanna play gobstones in the common room after classes finish?”

“Sure, sounds fun,” Ron agreed, glad that Hermione had helped him keep up with all his makeup work, even if it did kinda irritate him at the time.

They were discussing their favourite wizarding and muggle board games while Harry gave Fluffy some table scraps when Severus and Minerva came back in, tapped Lockhart on the shoulder, and led him out into the hallway.  Dumbledore looked over at first, prepared to intervene in whatever was going on, but at the look on his Deputy Headmistress and Potion Master’s face, he backed off and went back to his lunch, pretending to notice nothing.

“Professor Lockhart will be returning shortly,” Minerva announced when she and Professor Snape came back in.  “He just had to change his robes.”

“Alright then,” the Slytherins looked at each other and shrugged.  “Guess it’s a bad idea to piss off our head of house.”

Chapter Text

Harry got his sling off Friday, which meant that Snape had to specifically order Marcus to wait until Saturday to call the first quidditch practice.

“So, you think you’re gonna try out for chaser this year?” Harry signed to Draco as they walked to the pitch.

“Eh, I don’t know…” Draco shrugged, his hands going quiet.

“Still upset about Flourish and Blotts, huh?”  Harry asked gently, and Draco shrugged again.

“You haven’t been yourself lately- you’re barely talking, you’re listless, you don’t seem interested in anything- c’mon Dray, open up a little,” the Iranian Slytherin prodded.  “We’re here for you.”

“I know,” Draco sighed.  “I just… I grew up thinking that my father was who I was supposed to be like.   I mean, I knew he could be kinda mean, and gruff, and I was always closer to my mum, but I thought he was a good person.  I didn’t even know it was an arranged marriage until I was ten.  She tried to protect me from everything, and she was unhappy the whole time.”

“I’m sorry things are so rough for you right now,” Harry stopped signing and put a hand on Draco’s shoulder.  “And I’m sure things will get better. Your mum loves you, and the Weasleys love you, and your father is missing out.  But it’s okay to be sad, you know? Just don’t shut us all out, please?” Harry pleaded, and Draco was no better than anyone else at saying no to those big green eyes in Harry’s sweet little face, so he promised he’d talk to someone if he was having trouble.

“Good to have you back, Harry- the cup will be ours this year!” Marcus was in his element, the kind of excitement he only felt on the quidditch pitch flowing through his veins.  “Can’t wait to see Wood’s stupid face when we rip the cup right out of his grip. Thinks he’s soo talented, winning the damn thing once after we had it for seven straight years.”  Harry rolled his eyes- nothing about this situation was straight.  

“Right, so are we gonna practice or what?” Harry knew Marcus wasn’t going to listen to him about his obvious crush on Wood, so he just mounted his broom.

“Yeah, alright- everyone up in the air,” he ordered his team.  “Malfoy, are you here to try out for our reserve chaser position?”

“Yeah,” Draco took a deep breath and squared his shoulders.  “Yeah, I am.”

It started raining in the middle of practice, and by the time Severus came to call a stop to it (since Marcus clearly was too absorbed in quidditch to worry about the rain and the cold and its effects on his team, according to the lecture the head of house gave him) they were all soaked, and Harry was covered nearly head to toe in mud from a low-to-the-ground catch, his fingers nearly frozen around the snitch.

“Sev!” he cheered, “Draco made reserve- chaser and seeker!”

“That’s wonderful,” he deadpanned, casting warming charms on the two boys.  “It would be more wonderful if he’d made it on a day where it wasn’t raining in sheets, but congratulations.”

“Alright little one,” Severus told Harry, who groaned- Madame Pomfrey’s nickname was spreading, “Go get into a warm bath- I know there’s only showers in the dorm, but the elves just finished making a bedroom for you in my quarters, and the bathroom adjacent has a tub.  You remember how to get into my quarters, yes? Same password as last time.”

Harry’s eyes went wide- he’d long-ago been given the password into Sev’s quarters in case of emergencies, but he wasn’t expecting his own room.  He opened his mouth, trying to figure out how to express his gratitude, but the Professor just rolled his eyes.

“You’re welcome, child, and you can let me know if you want to change anything.  Now go, before you catch cold.”

Harry did as instructed, and his jaw dropped- even after a year of being loved and treated well, it was still surprising that someone would to this for him- the room was a soft, soothing blue, and one wall was completely dominated by a window that looked out into the lake.  There was a soft white carpet, and the note in the entryway read ‘charmed to stay clean.’ Harry took a tentative step forward, and even though he was still wet and muddy, the carpet stayed a pristine white where his foot had been. Further into the room, there was a bookshelf made of a clean, light pinewood, and the top shelf had all his favourite classic novels.  The middle one was full of potions publications, the next one had extra copies of all his textbooks, the next was comics, and the bottom shelf held fiction and fantasy. The duvet colour was a light silver, and the pillows were blue to match the walls. There were a few posters on the walls, a watercolour panoramic of the Hogwarts grounds, and a few pictures that Harry knew must be of his mother as a child.  

Finally, against the wall opposite the large window was a little potions station, with a number of cauldrons of different materials stacked neatly underneath the table, next to a caddy of ingredients labelled alphabetically.  On top of the table was a little area where he could light a fire underneath his cauldron, and next to it were a stack of Old Hogwarts potions texts, years one through seven. There was a note pinned to the top volume.

Harry,

These are copies of my textbooks as a child- the label on the inside of the later few years says ‘Half-Blood Prince,’ which was a nickname I gave myself, after my mother, who was part of an old pureblood family before she married my father.  Inside, you will find useful tips, tricks, and suggestions for modifying certain of the potions in the text to improve them. Feel free to experiment with your own adjustments. There are also a number of spells that I invented myself- before giving these books to you, I went back and annotated them, telling you which ones are safe, which ones you should only use in case of emergencies, and what they all do.  As I’ve told you, there were a few years of my late teens in which I made… bad decisions, to put it mildly, so a few of them may seem rather… dark. I debated with myself before giving you these texts, but I believe they could aid you in your own explorations of the noble field of potions, and additionally, as much as it pains me to say it, with the events of last year I would far rather that you know such harmful spells and not need them than need them and not know them.  

I don’t have any old photographs of your father to put up in here, but if you ask your dogfathers, I’m sure they can give you some.  The bathtub in your bathroom is charmed to respond to either spoken or signed commands, as I figured it would be easier than fiddling with a bunch of taps for different soaps and trying to adjust the spigots endlessly.  The shower is charmed the same way. There is a trundle under your bed that pulls out and holds a dog bed for Fluffy. I didn’t tell you about your room, as… pardon my sentimentality (and don’t tell anyone, if you care about me at all, or I shall never live it down)... I wanted it to be a surprise.  I hope you enjoy it, and anytime you wish to escape the noise bustle of the dorms, you are welcome here.

Sincerely,

S.S.

Harry realised he had been standing there, taking in the sight of his amazing room, for long enough that he’d lost track of time, and the fish swimming through the clean, dark water of the lake reminded him that he still needed to clean up.  Not wanting to get mud in the bathwater, he decided to rinse off in the shower first.

“Er, a strong stream of warm water, please,” he told the stone-paved wall of the shower, feeling a bit silly, but it did as requested, and Harry realised he was so fascinated by it all that he’d forgotten to take his robes and underclothes off.  He did, looking down at his ribcage to see if it had filled in enough that it was no longer visible (it hadn’t) before he gathered up his clothes in a pile in his arms, wondering what to do with them in the interim. Fortunately, in the doorway to the bathroom was a hamper labelled laundry shoot, and when Harry looked down, instead of seeing a normal wicker bottom, it just kept going down into a dark chasm.

“Alright then,” he shrugged, dropping them and feeling a whoosh of air as they were sucked off into wherever laundry was done in the castle, and he padded back into the shower to finish rinsing before heading to the bathtub.

“One warm bath please,” he politely instructed the porcelain, hot-tub sized in-ground reservoir, which quickly filled, the water steaming gently.  

“Uh, can I please have some bubbles, too?” he tried, and a squirt of liquid bath soap that smelled like apples came out of one of the taps along the side.  He smiled at the novelty of it.

“Just a few more, maybe?” he requested, and the tub filled with all the bubbles a kid could possibly want as he sank into the warm water, a contented expression on his face as the warm water, sighing pleasantly as it battled off the cold that had seeped through his skin.

Severus was worried when he hadn’t heard from Harry by the lunch bell, and he instructed the other first-years in his house to head down to the Great Hall while he took Fluffy by the leash and stalked towards his quarters.

“Find Harry,” he ordered the cerberus, and a moment later a bark came from the bathroom.  The potions master rushed in, and the sight that met him had him letting out a sigh of relief while simultaneously feeling a pang of affection clenching in his chest.  Harry, up to his neck in bubbles, had fallen asleep in the warm water, his head resting on the side of the tub as his eyelids fluttered and he snored quietly. The crystalline drops of water clinging to his long eyelashes caught the light of the bathroom, casting faint prismic rainbows onto the caramel skin of his cheeks.  His haphazard mess of curls dripped onto the floor, emitting a faint scent of apples.

He looked so peaceful there that Severus was very tempted to let him rest, but he needed to eat- besides that, the man was hoping that if he kept Harry to a strict meal schedule, his circadian rhythm might kick in and help his body relearn to read its hunger signals, which Harry had long since stopped feeling due to the starvation the Dursleys used as punishment for his many perceived ‘wrongdoings.’

“Harry,” he nudged him gently, “Little one- wake up.”  He was kind of glad that the child couldn’t hear him, as he hated the nickname that Poppy had given him and that he and Minerva had both picked up.

“Mmm… mmmmph,” he mumbled, before looking up, seeing Severus, and startling.

“Shhh,” Severus enunciated, holding his shoulders so he wouldn’t slip and hit his head in his surprise.  “I can’t see anything through the bubbles, don’t worry- you didn’t show up for lunch, so I sent Fluffy to find you.  You fell asleep in the bath.”

“Oh,” Harry yawned and rubbed his eyes, and Severus winced, but Harry seemed not to notice the sting of the bubble bath he’d just rubbed into his tear ducts as the potions master wet a cloth and wiped his face clean.  “Sorry- I didn’t mean to,” he blushed, looking guilty.

“Not your fault- I’m going to leave you to get dried off and dressed- there are clothes in the dresser in your room- and then we can walk down to lunch together.”

Harry came out in a warm black jumper and jean trousers, his feet wrapped in the sturdy dragon-hide boots Severus had gotten him, and the man could see the tops of some fuzzy socks poking out.  He couldn’t help a fond eye-roll- Harry was always dressing for winter, the chilly little thing.

“The house elves made Albaloo Polow today,” he told his ward as they walked, and Harry’s face lit up- out of all the Iranian food Kreacher had made for him, that was still his favourite, just like it had been when he was a baby.

“They made it by coincidence or you and Aunt Minnie asked them to make it,” Harry cocked an eyebrow at him, and Severus put his hands up in surrender.

“Fine, you’ve figured it out, cheeky thing.”

“Wait- stop!” Harry suddenly put his arm out.  “Something’s speaking parseltongue.”

Severus did as instructed, straining his ears for the sound of hissing, but he doubted he would hear it- as far as he understood, through the literature and lore combined with what he’d learned from Harry, parseltongue was more of a mental magical ability that just was just interpreted as auditory input by most speakers, since as far as he knew Harry was the first deaf parselmouth, or at least the first recorded one.  For him, it seemed to work more like a legilimency bond, although if the snake was visible when speaking he interpreted more like lip-reading.

“What’s it saying,” he signed, as Harry cocked his head to listen.

“Will not kill… must protect… trapped,” Harry translated, looking concerned.  He walked up, tapping the wall and feeling around for anything out of place.

“Can you channel the magic, feel if anything is off?” Severus asked, and Harry tuned in.

“Nothing feels different than usual, and there aren’t any large magical signatures as far as I can reach- whatever it is, it must have already gone past.”

“Maybe it was just a rat snake, talking about her nest or something,” Severus offered, and Harry chewed his lip.

“Maybe…” he trailed off, looking unconvinced, and Snape decided he ought to keep a closer eye on Harry, add some extra safety precautions.

“Don’t go anywhere alone for a while, alright?  And I know you don’t necessarily need Fluffy and leave him in the common room for a bit sometimes, but I want you to take him with you everywhere now, even if you’re only leaving the common room for a little bit.  Hopefully it’s nothing, but just to be safe,” the older Slytherin ordered.

“Okay,” Harry nodded, and Fluffy instinctively stepped closer to his master as they reached the Great Hall.  While the aroma of warm sour cherry rice soon distracted the second-year, Severus stayed nervous for quite a while.  Something wasn’t right...

Chapter Text

Harry was coming in from quidditch practice the next week with a very dirty Fluffy trailing behind him, tracking dirt and slobber in a path behind him.  Harry had taken his vest off during the practice to let him play, and he’d taken the opportunity to roll in all the dirt.  The preteen was carrying the vest in his arms as he padded through the hallways, ready to head back to the dorms and change for dinner.

“Hey, you little heathen!  What do you think you’re doing?” a voice called behind him, but of course he couldn’t hear it.  Filch, of course, took it as a sign of disrespect that the little green-clad figure in his little quidditch boots kept on tap-tap-tapping along, and called again.  Fluffy looked towards the source of the noise, but didn’t really see any reason for his little charge to talk to this angry, creepy man, so he turned back dismissively.

Filch lurched forward again, and Fluffy growled at him.  Harry felt his dog tense up and also turned around, jumping when he realised that there was a furious caretaker shaking his fist at them.

“Er, I’m sorry- can you please look down so I can read your lips?”  Harry requested politely, which only made him angrier. He grabbed Harry by the arm and tried to drag him away, but the cerberus sank his teeth into Filch’s leg, and the caretaker growled, backhanding Harry across the face.  He looked up, nose bleeding, and scrambled back- he knew how this went; he’d experienced it enough times in his life.

“C’mon Fluffy, run!” he yelled, grabbing his dog by the collar- he was still slavering at the man, but he followed his little master.  Filch limped along after them, raising his fist, but Harry was fast- all those years of outrunning Dudley payed off. They kept running until Harry turned a corner and hit a dead end, panting heavily and eyes wide as he turned to face the advancing caretaker.

“Back, foul beast, back!”  The Gryffindor ghost, Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington, or ‘Nearly-Headless Nick’ as he was known colloquially, came swooping down through the ceiling.  He couldn’t grab Argus Filch, but he could go through him- or rather, he could go part way through him, and he continued to drive him back as the man fled the uncomfortable sensation of being dipped in ghost.  Eventually, he gave up his advance and ran the other way, calling over his shoulder.

“You’re in trouble, brat, just you wait!”  Harry didn’t wait, as Harry didn’t hear him.

“Thanks,” he turned to Sir Nicholas.  “I really appreciate that, Sir Nick.” Nearly-Headless Nick beamed, pleased that someone respected his wish to be called by his actual name and not constantly remind him of his debauched beheading.

“Of course, little one,” he squatted, directly in front of Harry’s face so the child could read his translucent lips, and then backed off immediately- he could tell his proximity was already making Harry chilly, so he pulled away.

“I’m gonna go back to my dorm now,” Harry wiped his sweating face on his sleeve, looking a little surprised when it came away bloody- he’d forgotten about his bleeding nose.  Nick nodded, but he stepped forward one last time to finish the conversation.

“Oh, I was wondering- my 500th deathday party is on Halloween, and I was wondering if you’d like to come as my guest?”

“Okay,” Harry agreed right away.  “That sounds fun.”

“Nice- I’ll see you then, and make sure to eat first and dress warmly,” he instructed as he faded back into the wall- he wanted to talk to the boy’s head of house before Harry did, as he figured (correctly) that he would downplay the incident.

“And what, may I ask, is the Gryffindor ghost doing in the head of Slytherin’s quarters?” Severus asked drily as the man floated through his office.  

“An… incident occurred between Filch and one of your students,” Nicholas informed him; honestly- why Dumbledore would consider the old, white squib a ‘diversity hire’ was beyond him.

“Oh?” Snape finally raised his head.  “Did he assign too many detentions for ‘looking happy’ again?”

“Worse- little Harry Potter was coming in from practice with his cerberus, who was rather dirty, and Filch through a fit about it- which makes no sense, honestly- it’s his job to clean, so he shouldn’t complain about it.  If anything, I’d like to make a complaint about his customer service and competence- he’s worse at his job than my executioner was, which is saying something…” Nick muttered, pulling his head to the side again angrily.

“If we could return to the topic at hand…” Severus was getting nervous now- Harry, through no real fault of his own, was a magnet for trouble.

“Oh, yes- the poor little thing came in with his dog, who was dirty of course, because they were playing outside, like children do- honestly, we should be thanking Merlin the poor thing can play at all- in  my day, a wee little babu like that wouldn’t have survived this long, but I digress. Filch starts yelling at the child, and of course it’s common knowledge in the castle that he can’t hear, but he still got angry when he didn’t respond, even though Argus was calling at his back, so he comes up to him looking like a cantankerous codpiece but Harry still reminds him- polite as can be- that he needs to be able to lipread, but the rotten old cabbage starts advancing on him, so his hell-beast, like any good animal companion, bites the man, and he smacks the child- hard, across the face- he’s on his way to you bleeding out of his wee little nose right now, but I thought you ought to know the truth of what happened, as Harry seems like the type of child who would apologise to you while you’re beating him up, sweet little bairn,” Nick huffed, crossing his arms.

“He has a quick wit, but yes- in general, he’s far too mild-mannered for his own good,” Severus grit, clenching his fists and trying not to get too angry right before Harry arrived, as he still got cagey and anxious when people were angry around him, even if it wasn’t directed his way.  He could kill Filch afterwards. Deep breath in, deep breath out.   Happy place, happy place- no other children, just him in a cottage in Wales, Harry next to him at a smaller brewing station, both of them enjoying the silence…

“Seb’rus?” Harry knocked on the open door as the man winced- he sounded like he was speaking through a decent amount of blood in his nose.

“Come in- I’ve already heard what happened!” Snape called, and Harry entered, blood all down the front of his quidditch robes.  Some dripped onto the carpet, and Harry stopped, pulling out his wand and trying to cast cleaning charms while also preventing more blood from dripping.

“Don’t worry about it- I’ll get it later,” he told him, gently pulling his hands away from his face to look at the damage, and he bit back a wince- besides his bleeding nose, a large bruise was spreading out across on both sides of his nostrils.

“Hold this against your nose for a moment- I’m going to go get a salve for it,” he handed Harry a handkerchief and went back to his private stores, pulling out a purple jar full of lavender-smelling cream.

“Here,” Severus pulled the cloth away and looked at his nose again, waving his wand to fix the break before gently using two fingers to spread the balm.

“Smells nice,” Harry commented.

“Good- you can smell it, then,” Severus breathed a sigh of relief and gently prodded the area.  “How’s the pain?”

“It’s fine,” Harry said.  “Thank you, but you didn’t really need to waste any medicine on it- I could have let it heal on its own.”

“Child- look at me, please.”  Severus held both of his little brown hands in his own pale ones.  “You’re not a waste- of materials, of money, of medication- you’re a child with needs, and it is my job- mine and the mutts- to provide them.  Now,” he looked at the blood-soaked handkerchief. “You were probably bleeding all the way down here from the entry hall, yes?”

“Yes sir, but I cleaned it up- I also cleaned up after Fluffy, since it bothered Filch so much.”

“That’s not what I was talking about, little one- it’s Filch’s job to clean up after students.”   Although it won’t be for long, if I have any say in it, he thought angrily to himself.  “I’m just a bit concerned- if you were still bleeding this heavily after you walked all the way down here, while being slowed down by casting cleaning charms, no less- then I’m thinking you ought to take a blood-replenishing potion, just to be safe, alright?  I talked to Poppy, and your iron levels are already fairly low from the malnutrition, so I don’t want you dealing with blood loss on top of it. Now take this,” he handed Harry the deep red potion. “Do you like liver?”

“I’ll eat just about anything,” Harry answered, as Severus called a house elf.

“Here,” he put a small serving of liver and onions in front of the preteen.  “Eat this and then you can go have a nice warm bath in your room.”

“Thank you,” Harry told him sincerely, and Severus was angry that he was still so surprised by baseline care- one day, he was going to go and make the Dursleys regret every day of their lives since they picked up that baby on their doorstep and made his life a living hell.

“Of course- if you’re not feeling well enough to go to dinner, I can have an elf bring you some in your room later.”

“It was just a little slap, Severus- really, I’m fine.”

The potions master crouched down so that Harry’s big green eyes had a clear view of his face, and he signed along so there would be no way for him to miss anything he said.  “It is never okay for someone to hit you, or hurt you, or try to punish you physically in any way.  If you don’t want someone to touch you, they shouldn’t be touching you- end of story. I don’t care what they think you did- you could have insulted their mother, or belittled their livelihood or any number of other rude things that you wouldn’t do in the first place, but even if you did, they should not hit you.  If someone has a problem with your behaviour, they can come to myself or your godfathers and let us handle it, or they can assign detention if it is another staff member.  But they may not hit you. I don’t care how small of a thing you think it was- if someone has tried to use any form of corporal punishment on you, you come to me, alright?  It’s not okay, Harry- your perception of these things has been affected by the fact that you’ve been treated cruelly in the past, and that’s not your fault, but I’m telling you now.  I don’t care if you think you deserved it, I don’t care if you thought it might be an accident- you come to an adult. Promise me this?”

“O- okay,” Harry agreed, putting down his fork to sign it out.  “I promise.”

“Good boy,” Severus ruffled his hair.  “I have a few things to take care of, but if you need me, you can call an elf at any time.  Just finish your liver and enjoy your bath and relax for the evening, alright?”

“Yes sir,” Harry nodded earnestly.

Severus stood at the doorway for a moment, watching this child he had grown to care for as he swung his legs against the chair (they didn’t quite reach the ground) and pet his dog as he worked on finishing his iron-rich snack.  He seemed to be doing alright and not suffering any hidden injuries that they hadn’t noticed, so the man turned on his heel and stalked towards the headmasters office, his robes billowing out behind him.

“Gummy bears,” he forced himself to say the juvenile password as he marched up the moving staircase, unwilling to wait for it to carry him up on its own.

“Oh, hello my dear boy,” Albus greeted, a little warily- he hadn’t really been alone with Severus since the night Harry arrived at school, and he didn’t like the look on his face at the moment.

“Cut the shite, old man,” Severus ordered, not in the mood for this dance tonight.  “Your caretaker that you hired out of pity has hit one of my students- broke his nose and caused substantial bleeding and bruising.  I want him fired.”

“Now, now- let’s not speak in anger,” Dumbledore placated.  “I’m quite certain he was an accident, and he’s had a difficult life.”

“He has not had a difficult life- he could do anything he wanted, but he had to wallow in his own bitterness about being a squib.  He could have gone anywhere or done anything- he’s a white man, for Merlin’s sake! But instead he stays around here, making students miserable and doing very little work- we have house elves who could do twice as much in a quarter of the time.  And now he has physically harmed a student,” Severus slammed his hands down on the desk, directing his intense, fathomless obsidian glare directly into Dumbledore’s watery blue eyes, lacking their usual twinkle by this point.

“Filch knows better than that- he is cantankerous, yes, but I’m quite certain he wouldn’t lay hand on a child unless it was by accident,” Albus maintained his position.

“Fire.  Him.” Severus demanded.

“I didn’t witness the incident, so I don’t feel comfortable destroying a man’s career over it,” Dumbledore’s voice had lost a bit of its postured levity.  “Which student was it, that you feel so strongly about this?”

“It shouldn’t matter which student it was, merely that a student was harmed,” the younger man growled.

“Oh, it was Harry then, wasn’t it?  So your perception is coloured then, by your protective instincts towards the child.  I will talk to Argus- remind him to be gentler with the students. But I shan’t fire him for this isolated incident, especially when you didn’t see it personally,” the headmaster’s voice was firm, and Severus knew he could yell all night and it wouldn’t make any difference.  He turned on his heel, making sure his elbow brushed the man’s favourite sneakoscope just hard enough to know it down.

“Oops,” he said as it shattered, but he made no move to even pretend he felt bad about it, and he slammed the door angrily as he left.  He’d had an unfortunate feeling that that was how the conversation would go, however, so he went to his backup plan.

“Argus,” he barked, not knocking on his office door.

“Severus- good to see you.  I had a problem with one of your students earlier today and-”

“I heard- and I’m here to tell you that if you ever lay a hand on my child again, I will personally make sure that your death is slow and painful and your body is never found.”  He stepped closer, pressing the tip of his wand against the man’s throat. “Are we clear?”  

“I…” Filch looked very much like he didn’t feel that his behaviour was uncalled for, but his more pressing concern at the moment was not upsetting the angry man with the ability to cause him significant harm.  “Very well.”

“Good.” The Slytherin glared at the caretaker, but before he left, he sent a strong stinging hex at the man’s chest.  “See that you remember it.”

Severus checked in on Harry again when he got back- he’d gotten out of the bath, gotten dressed and fallen asleep at his desk, a book on his chest and his face against the wood of the table.  It was clear he hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but Severus wasn’t going to wake him.  He picked him up carefully and carried him to the bed, tucking his little body under the duvet.  He called an elf to bring a dinner tray, and he put a warming charm on it, leaving it on the desk with a note that said for when you wake up.

“Where’s Harry?” Ron and Hermione came up to him as soon as he entered the main common room, as he’d expected them too.  

“He had an unpleasant run-in with Filch, so he’ll be taking dinner in his room, although he’s napping at the moment.”

“What happened?” Ron asked, and the air around him heated slightly.

“He hit Harry- I’ve already gone to Dumbledore about firing him, but he refused.  I’ve obviously threatened Filch, but I’d still be open to suggestions.”  He froze for a moment as an idea dawned on his face.

“Weasley,” he ordered.  “Bring me your brothers- the twin terrors.”

“Uh, I don’t know the password for the Gryffindor common room,” Ron reminded him.

“Tell the portrait you’re on an errand for me- the staff password for entry is ‘founders.’”

Somehow, Ron brought his brothers back in under twenty minutes, and his strategic mind was already mentally mapping the tunnels they’d taken him through as a shortcut- he figured if he could remember where those were, he could start finding the others that surely existed (and were quite possibly the secret to Fred and George’s success).

“Ah, Professor Snape,” one of them began (it was George, but Snape couldn’t tell them apart- very few apart from the Weasleys themselves and Harry could, although even their own siblings sometimes mixed them up).

“How lovely to see you- you called?”

“Yes- into my office.”

“Now, I don’t know what you think we did,” Severus was fairly certain it was the other one speaking this time (it was, indeed, Fred).

“But whatever it is- we have an alibi,” George finished.

“Relax- I’m not here to punish you for whatever chaos you’ve caused recently,” Severus rolled his eyes.  “I actually have a job for you.”

“Interesting- do tell.”  Fred steepled his fingers.

“Filch has dared raise a hand against Harry, and I won’t stand for it.  Unfortunately, Dumbledore has tied my hands- he refuses to fire him, and I am unable to exact the sort of revenge I would like to.  Therefore, I am giving you a free pass to cause as much mayhem as you like, as long as it inconveniences, irritates, or harms him in a manner that is not illegal.  Any detentions he gives you, I will use my position of seniority to take over, and you may spend them doing whatever you like. Give him hell.”   Severus’ dark curtain of hair framed his face in such a way as to create a menacing shadow to underscore his wrathful expression, and the twins fully understood his anger- they had seen him lose his temper many times before Harry came along, but now they could fully sympathise.  Righteous anger was a good colour on Severus Snape, they decided.

“You can count on us, Professor- if you excuse us, we’re going to go talk to Peeves.”

Chapter Text

Over the next couple of weeks, Fred and George made good on their promise to make Filch’s life miserable.  Things got dirty right after he cleaned them. Mrs. Norris became mysteriously pink or blue or yellow. The caretaker found himself covered in all manner of sticky substances that wouldn’t come off, no matter how he scrubbed, and his mops and brooms and buckets would move around, sometimes even while he was holding them.  Once, he was hit over the head with the brush he’d been using to clean the fireplace. Another time, the mop squeezed itself out over his head, covering him in dirty water. Peeves tailed him invisibly, making obnoxious noises.

At one point, Gilderoy Lockhart tried to offer his unwanted assistance in removing a sticky, tar-like substance from Filch’s hair, skin, and clothing, and that only ended with both of them covered in it.  His classes were cancelled that day, which made all the students happy.  Doors to secret passages rearranged themself, and Argus was often seen walking face-first into walls.  When he went to Poppy for bruise balm, she had always ‘run out.’ Severus never thought he’d be saying such a thing, but he was very pleased with those two Gryffindors.

“And one more scarf,” Severus was saying on Halloween as he wrapped Harry in warm clothing after making sure he ate a good dinner.

“I don’t think I can move…” Harry’s voice was muffled through the layers of winter clothing he was wrapped in.  On top of the warm, long wool underwear he was wearing was a pair of corduroy trousers, and he had on three jumpers.  He was also wearing a pair of ski pants, a puffy jacket, a hat, and earmuffs (and, of course, three silver and green scarves).

“You’ll manage, I’m sure- it will be very cold, with all those ghosts, and you won’t want to be shivering the whole time,” the professor informed him.

“That’s all well and good, but don’t you think this is a little much?- if I were white, I’d be a marshmallow.”

“Cheeky little thing,” he rolled his eyes, then his expression turned serious.

“Are you doing alright?  I know that this is a hard day for you… emotionally, and then the deathday party…”

“I’ll be alright.  I know that mum and dad wouldn’t want me to spent the day being sad, and I’ll be making a friend feel good on his deathday, so I suppose it’s as good as can be expected,” Harry answered honestly.  “And hey- it can’t really get much worse than fighting a troll, right? Nowhere to go but up.”

“Your positivity astounds me.”

“Thank you.”

“Who said it was a compliment?” Severus raised his eyebrows.

“Normal people,” Harry rolled his eyes, and Severus couldn’t help but be proud of his quippiness.   That’s my boy, he thought.

“Excuse the sentimentality, but have fun,” he tried to ruffle Harry’s hair before remembering he was wearing a hat (warm, soft, and knitted by Molly Weasley- Severus had commissioned her for all of Harry’s winter things save his waterproof gear, as nothing in the shops was as warm or well-made as something off of the knitting needles of the Weasley Matriarch, and the extra money enabled her to buy a new family owl so poor Errol could finally retire).

“I will- I’d hug you, but I’m kinda lost in all these clothes,” he moved his arms to demonstrate, as they wouldn’t go down but rather stuck out to the sides, the puffy jacket preventing them from hanging down at their normal positions.

“So dramatic,” Severus gave a low, baritone chuckle as he watched Harry waddle off, looking quite a bit like a little penguin.

“Hey guys,” Harry greeted his friends, speaking aloud, since his hands were encased in mittens.

“Wow,” Ron quirked an eyebrow at him.  “Snape really went overboard on the ‘dress warm’ thing, huh?”

“I can’t bend my knees,” Harry responded as agreement.

“Probably a good thing, anyway,” Hermione was dressed a bit more warmly than Ron (who was only wearing a warm jumper and a scarf), with a peacoat over her Weasley jumper and a warm pair of earmuffs hidden amongst her frizzy curls.  “Not like you have any body fat to help you out.”

“Yeah,” Draco came up, ready to join them (he’d jumped on as soon as he heard they were going to a deathday party- ghosts had been one of his special interests at one point).  “This is like your blubber,” he motioned to Harry’s black puffy coat.

“I’m not a seal,” Harry protested.

“No, you’re an adorable little penguin,” Ron laughed, and his best friend gave him a dirty look.

“Shouldn’t you be dressed a bit more warmly?” Pansy asked, from where she was adjusting her costume for the Halloween feast (when she heard that muggles wore costumes, she immediately wondered why wizards didn’t and roped every Slytherin who wasn’t going to the deathday party in joining her in this new tradition).

“No, I’m good,” Ron said, holding out his hands, and little fires sprung to his palms.

“Whoa!” Draco gasped.  “When’d you learn to do that?”

“Just today,” the redhead answered.  “It’s weird- I’ve been gaining more control lately.”

“Aren’t you kinda worried?” Daphne asked.  “What about what Pomfrey said about burning your insides?”

“I think she was overreacting- I mean, it was maybe kinda dangerous at first, but I can feel the fire getting stronger, and I just know it won’t hurt me.  And lately I’ve been more comfortable in the heat, too- like in Binns’ class the other day, when he had every fireplace in the room going, and even Harry was sweating- I was fine.  I haven’t felt hot since the day we came to school.”

“Something’s going on,” Hermione chewed her lip, making her library face.

“Speaking of something going on, what are you?” Ron turned to Pansy, changing the subject in hopes of pushing Hermione’s library mission until at least tomorrow.

“I’m a gothic vampire queen- I suck the blood of men,” Pansy exclaimed, baring her teeth (and their fake fangs) and making a clawing motion with her hands.

“You’re so weird,” Blaise rolled his eyes at her.

“Shut up- I am your queen, batboy.”

“It’s Batman- Harry’s explained the concept a thousand times, for Merlin’s sake!”

“No, Snape is Batman- you’re just Batboy.”

“Should we go, before they start firing hexes at each other?” Harry asked, and Draco nodded as they all slipped out the portrait hole.

“Happy Deathday, Sir Nick,” Harry congratulated, pulling a little wrapped package out of his pockets.  “Er, I wasn’t quite sure what to get a ghost, but I heard that you guys really miss being able to hold things?  So I did some research and I found out that if you take a piece of metal that a ghost touched when they were alive and mix it with dirt from their grave, you can make something they can touch.  And… well, I hope it’s okay, but Severus and I managed to track down the ax that beheaded you, and we were able to take a piece of the handle and melt it back down and re-forge it with some dirt from your grave.”  He pulled out the little piece of metal, shaped a bit like an old arrowhead, and Nick’s face dropped, his expression reverent. He reached out for it, barely daring to believe he could touch something for the first time in five hundred years.

But he could, and he did.  He gripped it, and then, suddenly, he put it to his neck, slicing through the last couple millimeters of skin that held his head to the rest of his body.

“Oh, that’s better,” he sighed in relief, as the children startled.  “Like finally getting a splinter out- of course, in my day infection was rampant, so if you did get a splinter out, the wound was liable to get infected and kill you.”

“So… you like it, then?” Harry ventured, and Nick beamed at him.

“Oh Harry- this is positively the best thing to happen to me in my entire afterlife.”  The Slytherin mused to himself that that was the exact opposite reaction that he would expect from someone who’d just had their head pulled off, but at least his friend was happy.

The Headless Hunt entered, no doubt hoping to upstage Sir Nicholas at his own party as they entered on their ghostly horses, tossing around the head of Sir Patrick, their leader.

“Ahh Sir Nicholas- so sorry about your recent application, but as I’m sure you’ll realise, nearly headless is insufficient for our purposes.”

“Oh yes- I am aware, although I must admit I find it funny that a group of men who can throw their heads as far as they wish are so very narrow-minded,” he replied, before dramatically pulling off his head.  These were fifteenth-century English lords in attendance, so it should come as no surprise that the reaction was intensely dramatic.

“How?!” Sir Patrick cried, and Nicholas held up his birthday gift.

“A touchable!” the men of the hunt cried.   “He has a touchable!”  

“Yes, yes I do.  You see, because my head was firmly attached to my body, it was never allowed to get too big, and I made friends amongst the students, one of whom has given me this great gift.”

“Well,” Sir Patrick suddenly did an about-face, his posture becoming more submissive.  “I suppose, seeing as you are now headless, we might… reconsider your application.”  He swallowed anxiously- a ghost with a touchable was a hallowed figure in the in-between community.

“How… kind… of you,” Nicholas looked down his nose at the man.  “But I think I shall decline the offer, as I have no desire to cavort with people who have looked down at me for centuries.  I have been as happy as the Gryffindor ghost as one could be when stuck between life and afterlife, and I shall stay here, with people who like me regardless of the relationship between my head and my neck.”

Harry and his friends watched the interaction, and the green-eyed Slytherin couldn’t deny that watching Nick deny the offer was satisfying- he stood up to his tormentors the way Harry always wished he could have stood up to Dudley and his gang, and it was a vicarious sort of joy he received, seeing his friend being able to do it because of a gift he’d given him.

“Thank you, my friend,” Sir Nicholas told him, and Hermione signed a translation so Harry didn’t have to get too close to the freezing ghost.

“Of course,” Harry smiled, his dimples standing out adorably.  They stayed at the party a while longer before he started to shiver a bit despite all his clothing and Nick insisted they leave so he could warm up, repeatedly assuring Harry that he wouldn’t be offended.

“You want to go back to the feast- I think it’s still going on?” Ron asked them, his stomach perking up at the idea of a second dinner.

“Sure, that sounds fun,” Harry agreed.  Even though he wasn’t hungry, the mood was quite festive last year- what little of it they’d gotten to enjoy pre-troll, at least.  Then he stopped.

“Guys- it’s the snake again- the one I heard with Severus.”

“No, no no- pleasssse don’t make me!  Free me- I’m trapped!” the serpentine voice was pleading, full of pain.

“I think it’s in trouble!” he told his friends, and when he stripped off his puffy coat and vanished his pants back to his room so he could run towards the source of the voice, they of course followed him.

“This way!” he called, taking a right past the Great Hall.  Whatever kind of snake this was, it moved far too fast for Harry to get a chance to channel into the magic around it, and they were all panting by the time something red caught the corner of their eyes.

“Ohhhh fuck,” Ron swore, as they took in the message written on the wall in red paint- or blood.   Enemies of the heir, beware!  The Chamber of Secrets has been opened!  

“This can’t be good,” Draco agreed in the understatement of the year.  Above the message, a very stiff Mrs. Norris hung by her tail, her expression one of fear.

“No,” Hermione rasped.  “It most certainly cannot.”  Harry gathered none of this conversation, his eyes still glued to the scene.

In what seemed to be one of the central themes of Harry’s life- bad timing- the feast let out just then, and Filch, one ear sprouting oddly-coloured mushrooms, stalked towards the four Slytherins in the centre.

“My cat!  You’ve killed my cat, you demon-heathen-beast-creature!”

At least he didn’t call me ‘freak,’ Harry thought, his mind a bit disengaged from his surroundings as the caretaker rushed towards him, knocking his friends aside as he grabbed him by the neck, shoving him against the wall.

Harry was beginning to see spots, trying desperately to draw enough breath to form a plan as his hands scrabbled at Filch’s gnarled fingers, trying to free himself.  But Filch was more than thrice his size and he was shoved against a wall, feet hanging above the ground and hands just trying to keep his throat from being squeezed any tighter.

A black-clad figure suddenly came barrelling into the man’s side, and strong arms caught Harry as he fell, head spinning.

“Can you breathe?” Severus asked nervously, as Harry wheezed but nodded his head yes- it was painful, but air was already coming in more easily.  He conjured a cushion and set the second-year gently against it. Then he turned to Filch.

“You,” he growled.  “I warned you.”  His voice was deathly calm and barely above a whisper, yet every student in the hall (save Harry) could hear it.

“Severus,” Dumbledore finally stepped forward.  “Rein it in. And Argus- Mrs. Norris isn’t dead, only petrified- Pomona has a new crop of mandrakes that will be ready by June, so we can restore her.”

“He needs to leave,” Severus looked at the headmaster.  “He was choking a student- he must be fired now!”

“This is a very tense situation, and I believe Argus lost control of his emotions for a moment- why don’t we all go and talk this out?” He intoned, infuriatingly calm as Gilderoy butt in, offering his office for the conversation.

“There will be no talking this out,” Severus’ silky voice cut through the conversation like the coils of a boa constrictor as he seized control once again.  “Either you fire Filch or I kill him- your choice.”  He glared at Dumbledore, and Filch shrank back behind the headmaster.

“I have to agree, Headmaster,” Minerva stepped forward, and she pursed her lips in just-noticeable distaste on the word headmaster.   “Filch’s behaviour was disgusting, and frankly he’s done nothing except make students miserable for years- we have no need of him.”

“Get out of the castle now- we’ll send you your bloody cat when she’s been revived, and she’s the only feline specimen we shan’t miss,” the deputy headmistress told the bitter old squib, and he fled without waiting for Dumbledore’s input- he had clearly lost control of the situation.

“I’m going to take him to the hospital wing,” Severus told his coworker, picking up Harry, who had a line of vivid, finger-shaped bruises around his throat (something he was unfortunately all too familiar with).

“Don- don’t need hospital,” Harry coughed, and Severus gave him an unimpressed look.

“Of course you don’t- that’s obviously your normal voice, yes?”

Harry shrugged.  “How would I know? - I can’t hear it.”

At least he’s feeling well enough to make jokes, Severus let out an internal sigh of relief.

“Can I walk?” His ward’s question interrupted his musing.

“You can rest,” the man rolled his eyes as they reached the hospital wing, and he didn’t even bother to send away the line of Slytherin second years (sprinkled with two Hufflepuffs and a Gryffindor) and the two Ravenclaw first years following him like costume-bedecked ducks in a row.

“Don’t like that as much,” he sighed.

“Not unless it’s naptime,” Snape teased him gently, and Harry rolled his eyes again.

“Oh my,” Poppy shook her head.  “I really do wish we could have killed that man.”  Severus set Harry down in his usual bed while the nurse grabbed the bruise balm and rubbed it gently into his throat.

“And a bump on your head too, poor bean,” she clucked disapprovingly.  “But at least it’s not a concussion this time.” She lightly touched it with her wand, and it faded.  “How about a nice hot water bottle between the sheets, and your friends will go bring Charcoal and Fluffy to you.”  She deeply disliked animals in her hospital wing, but for Harry she made an exception.

“Alright,” he sighed, eyelids already fluttering- he was really too tired from the events of the night to further protest as he would have liked, and by the time his kitten was brought back and placed in his arms, and his dog by the foot of his bed, he was deeply asleep, toes curled around the comforting warmth of hot water bottle.

Chapter Text

“Harry, can you tell me my favourite colour?” Lockhart turned to the raven-haired teen, who was hunching in the back of the classroom trying not to be forced into another ‘reenactment’ of the blonde git’s books.  Since he still wasn’t making any effort to accomodate Harry’s deafness (honestly, it was quite probable he was just too self-absorbed to notice and/or remember Harry’s condition), Hermione had to sign the question to him before he could answer.

“Er, purple?” Harry guessed, looking at the man’s violet robes.

“It’s actually lavender (from where she’d been daydreaming, Lavender Brown startled at what she thought was her name), Harry, and I would have expected better from you.  Detention for not doing the homework. You can have it with me at 11 tonight.” Harry didn’t bother to point out that he did do the homework and that he just hadn’t thought that the professor’s favourite colour was a detail that required remembering from the reading they’d been assigned in Year with the Yeti.   He put his hand on Ron and Draco’s arms to stop them from having it out with the man in the middle of class as Hermione stared daggers at him.  Fortunately, Harry’s other best friend seemed to realise that starting a row with Lockhart would only make more trouble for Harry.

“Detention for not knowing the git’s favourite colour, honestly…” Ron trailed off as he angrily kicked the stone floor, already planning a ranting letter to his mum (hopefully she could come blast the pompous git with her handbag again).

“He’s just got this weird idea that we could be ‘friends’ or whatever because we’re both famous,” Harry placated, grabbing Ron’s arm before he could trip over the large cobblestone he was about to kick at.

“But you don’t even want to be famous,” Draco pointed out what they already knew.

“Yeah, well he’s an idiot,” Hermione reminded.

“It’ll be fine guys,” Harry tried to calm them down again.  “What’s the worst he could have me do- clean or something? I don’t mind.  I just wish it was earlier…” he thought longingly of his bed next to Ron’s, which would be abandoned until well into the night for Lockhart’s detention.

“They shouldn’t be allowed to have detentions after eight,” Hermione asserted fastidiously.  “We’re growing children and we need our sleep.” She stuck her nose up in the air, her bushy curls bouncing around her face, and Harry smiled.  His friends were so predictable with their reactions.

“I’m sure I'll manage just this once,” he laughed, putting a hand on her shoulder- he’d gotten far less sleep at the Dursleys for ten years, after all.  “Besides, tomorrow’s Friday, so I can sleep in soon.”

“You can never sleep past five, though,” Ron protested, and Harry shot him a look that said something along the lines of “way to blow my cover with my worried friend, other worried friend.”

“You should really go see someone about that,” Hermione chewed her lip, not leaving any room for anyone else to get a word in edgewise, and Harry sighed and rolled his eyes.

“There’s nothing wrong with me; it’s just my circadian rhythm,” he asserted, hoping she would drop it and the conversation wouldn’t have to include the Dursleys directly.   “Besides, there’s nothing wrong with being a morning person.”

“Oh, there absolutely is,” Draco broke in.  “There is no reason to be up before the sun is, and the fact that we have to be up before nine at all is frankly ridiculous.”

“Whatever Dray,” Harry rolled his eyes again and slung an arm over the blond’s shoulder.  “Whatever.”

“Lockhart did what now?” Severus stalked out, his sign language so dramatic in his anger that Harry, despite having his nose buried in an essay, caught sight of it from halfway across the common room.  Behind him stood Draco, looking out the window so as not to meet Harry’s eyes.

“It’s just a detention,” Harry soothed, putting down his homework with a rueful sigh.

“For no good reason,” their head of house growled, fists clenched, and the little second-year couldn’t help but flinch back from the anger on his face.  Severus took a deep breath, trying to calm down.

“I’m going to go talk to him about revoking it,” he said, fury barely in check, and one little brown hand tentatively reached for his arm.

“Please don’t,” his ward begged.  “It’ll only make things harder for me in class with him.  I don’t mind going to the detention- really, I don’t.”

“Alright,” Severus shoved his protests back and relented to the large emerald eyes.  “Since you asked me to, I will let it go this once.   But if he bothers you again, he’s going to have to answer to me.”

“Thank you,” Harry sagged in relief, glad to avoid being caught in a conflict between his guardian and the DADA teacher.

“It’s fine- don’t forget to come by my office and take your nighttime potions before you go.”  Snape tucked a lock of hair behind Harry’s ear while the preteen promised he would.

“C’mere Draco,” Harry ordered his guilty-looking dorm mate, fondly exasperated.  “I know you were just trying to help. We can work on Minnie’s assignment together and then play gobstones until dinner.”

“Staff meeting tonight,” Severus whispered to Minerva as his black eyes hawkishly watched Harry struggle through dessert.  “No Albus, no Lockhart. Spread the word.”

“Alright,” she responded, fully aware that that was all she was going to get out of her colleague for the moment.  Severus went back to focussing fully on Harry, and Minnie would have bet a month’s salary that he was silently rooting for him to finish his blueberry pie like it was a quidditch match.  

After dinner, the Slytherins went back to their common room, and Harry was putting on a third jumper as he tried to teach the mermaids sign language through the clear glass window, his hands shaking just slightly in the autumn chill.

“C’mere,” Draco mirrored their earlier conversation, putting a hand on Harry’s shoulder and leading him to the couch.  “You’re freezing.” He pulled the other boy’s head into his lap as his pale hands reached for Harry’s darker, colder ones to warm them.  He eventually slid them into the folds of his robes to keep them from getting any colder as one hand carded gently through haphazard curls and the other worked to loosen a knot in Harry’s scarred back.  Human contact could be… difficult, to say the least, but with Harry it felt natural, comfortable. He hadn’t been given a lot of affection in his life, and Draco found that he liked getting Harry used to it, and that it had the unintended purpose of making it a little easier for him as well.

“Dray,” bleary green eyes looked up at him, half-closed.  “You’re gonna make me fall asleep.”

“It’s okay- I’ll wake you up for your detention.  Even half-asleep, you’ll still be smarter than that dumb prat.”  Harry smiled softly before burying his face in Draco’s robes again.  A few moments later and he was snoring softly.

“Achoo!” he sneezed violently into the blonde’s lap, but did not wake up, and Draco cast a dubious look at the snot on his robes.

“You okay?” Hermione asked, knowing about his sensory issues and discomfort with certain bodily fluids.

“Yeah…” Draco swallowed.  “I’ll be fine.” He reminded himself that Harry needed his rest, and that he could wash the robe as soon as his friend left for detention.  Soon, he’d distracted himself fairly well with rubbing one of Harry’s curls between his fingers, loving the way it felt as he rolled it against his skin, and before he knew it, the clock struck ten-thirty and he was shaking the smaller boy awake and sending him, still half asleep, off to his detention.  Luckily, he didn’t notice that he’d sneezed on Draco’s robes, or he would have felt bad, and the blonde went into the dorm to strip them off, drop them in the laundry, and take a long, hot shower.

“So why are we having a secret staff meeting and leaving some of the staff out of it, exactly?” Aurora Sinistra inquired around the same time Harry was trudging through the drafty halls to Lockhart’s office.  She was only half-paying attention, one eye out the window watching the stars, her midnight-blue eyes nearly the same colour, one dark finger tapping the desk impatiently.

“We’re dealing with a significant level of incompetence stemming from the headmaster,” Severus began as Pomona finally clattered in, still covered in dirt from checking after the mandrakes, who in their cranky toddler phase tended to throw handfuls of their own soil around the greenhouse.

“And you’re considering Lockhart a subset of Albus’ incompetence,” Minerva guessed, as they all looked at the second empty chair and Flitwick charmed the door locked.

“Well, we wouldn’t be the ones dealing with it if it weren’t for the old fool, now would we?” the head of Slytherin snipped, well past politeness by this point, and the tabby animagus gave him a stern look but let the matter drop.

“So, what is your solution?” Flitwick squeaked, knowing that Severus, cranky as he was, wouldn’t have called them all together just to complain.

“We simply stop treating Albus like the authority.  Whenever possible, we go to Minerva- she is more than capable of doing his job, and he’s not exactly on top of watching what’s going on around here, so it should be fairly easy to handle routine matters ourselves while he’s off scheming on whatever ‘grand plan’ he’s got going at the moment,” Snape said with an eye roll at the plotting antics of a 150-year-old ‘professional.’

“And for Lockhart?” Hooch asked, and Severus eyes brightened just a little with vindictive glee.

“Oh yes- well, we all know he’s a fraud, of course, so I say we ought to catch him out on it- ask questions he doesn’t know the answer to, pretend to go along with his pompous bluffing just to watch him flounder when he can’t go through with whatever it is.  He has nothing but his arrogance, so I say we simply take a shot at his pride whenever possible and watch him fall apart.”

“Finally,” Pomona pumped her pudgy fist just a little in her excitement.  “An interaction with that man I can actually enjoy; I didn’t think such a thing were possible.”

“Well, it is a rather far-off concept, much like the idea of hugging a whomping willow,” Severus couldn’t resist putting in, and the Hufflepuff sobered a little, putting her hands on her hips as she gave him a half-hearted glare.

“However violent, it is a herbological rarity,” Professor Sprout scolded, and Severus just rolled his eyes again.

“I don’t quite care what a rarity it is- it tried to hurt my child, and if I had my way I’d chop it down,” he declared, and the other teachers exchanged sly smiles- he’d called Harry his child without a second thought.

“Well, you can’t,” Pomona ended the argument, although her tone wasn’t so stern as before.

Meanwhile, Severus’ child was rubbing his eyes as he addressed yet another envelope- helping Gilderoy Lockhart respond to fanmail was torture, and he’d experienced actual torture at the hands of the Dursleys and their heinous abuse.  But Merlin, he’d give up all of tomorrow’s meals if he could just get out of here.

“Try to match your handwriting to mine, Harry, it’s a bit messy,” the prat instructed, and Harry fought back the urge to roll his eyes- his handwriting was perfectly fine, thank you very much, especially after Madame Pomfrey had reset his crooked wrists last year and Severus taught him how to write with a quill- his penmanship wasn’t the problem.  However, Harry could confidently say that the ‘professor’s’ ostentatious calligraphy was too much, and that was coming from someone who lived with Sirius Black.

“Alright,” Harry grit his teeth, swallowed his pride, and forced himself to emulate Lockhart’s style- anything to avoid giving the man an excuse for more detentions.

“Much better, much better,” Gilderoy warbled.  “Not as good as mine, of course, but I have had years more experience answering fan mail, although I imagine you get quite a few letters yourself.”

“I don’t know- it would all go to Gringotts, and I told Griphook to handle that,” Harry shrugged, reluctantly keeping his eyes on the man’s face in case he decided to keep talking, which the Slytherin thought probable, considering he had an ego the size of Vernon Dursley’s temper.

“Oh.” Lockhart looked baffled that anyone wouldn’t want to know exactly how much fanmail they got, and Harry couldn’t bring himself to care.  He’d been at this for hours, he was freezing, and his head was pounding out a painful, pressurized rhythm behind his eyeballs. His nose wrinkled, and he just managed to bring his sleeve up to avoid sneezing all over his neat pile of addressed envelopes.

“Goodness, bless you child,” Lockhart clapped him on the shoulder, and Harry winced- his fingers unknowingly rested on one of many knotted scars from Vernon’s belt buckle, and their grip felt tight and possessive.  He wiggled away as discreetly as he could.

“Why, it’s two in the morning!” Gilderoy exclaimed, looking at the clock on the wall (which had easily been in his line of sight all evening).  “We were having so much fun that I didn’t realise.”

Speak for yourself, Harry thought, as the man kept talking.  “Don’t expect all your detentions to be this much of a treat, though, so you ought to stay out of trouble next time.”

I was staying out of trouble, and you’re the git who gave me the detention, the little voice in Harry’s head growled, and it was about as happy with the situation as Ron had been earlier.  Under all his layers, he was still breaking out in a cold sweat, and he searched his pockets for a kerchief to wipe his nose.  Not finding one, he just used his sleeve, wanting to leave Lockhart’s presence as soon as possible.

“Silly lad,” Gilderoy chuckled to himself obtusely.  “Probably wanted to leave so I wouldn’t see how excited he was to spend time with such a legend; such things are embarrassing for boys, you know.”  Above him, many copies of his own head nodded in agreement from their posters.

Harry muddled through the hallways, his head so wooly he didn’t even register the significance of the familiar serpentine voice hissing in distress to itself beyond the walls.

“Oh, this is just awful, what he’s making me do,” the great snake hissed, and Harry snorted, hoping the firey pain tearing through his throat as he did so would be gone after he got what few hours’ sleep he could.

“You and me both,” he told the disembodied voice in English, talking more to himself, really.  “Spend four hours addressing fanmail for that stupid git, and now I’m gonna be all sick in classes tomorrow.  And my ears hurt- I can’t even hear, and my ears hurt.  How is that fair?”

“Wait, child-” the serpent started, but Harry was too out of it to even catch what she said as he leaned his head against the cold stone of the walls near the Slytherin portrait, trying to remember the password.

“Wolfsbane,” he rasped eventually- Severus was still bitter that Remus had beaten him at exploding snap on the last night of summer hols, but his whole body ached too much to really appreciate the memory.  Even though he was freezing, his skin was sizzling hot to the touch, and Harry knew that that was not normal for anyone but Ron.

Severus started to a sitting position as the portrait opened, and he looked over to see his child stumbling through, bags under his eyes and a sheen of sweat over his face, although he was shivering.

“Sev?” Harry looked at him, his eyes unfocussed, and Snape bit back an exclamation of worry at the sound of his voice- he sounded like he’d been gargling with broken glass.  “You didn’t have to wait up for me.”

“Thank goodness I did, though,” he waved off Harry’s worries that he’d been an inconvenience.  “You look like death warmed over. Oh Merlin,” he groaned as Harry half-stumbled into his arms.  “Death flash-fried, more like it. You’re burning up, child!”

“Then why’s it so cold?” Harry whinged, hands protesting weakly as Severus took off his sweaters.

“Shh, shh- I know, but we need to lower the fever.  I’m going to call Poppy.” He hoisted his ward’s light body into his arms as he headed to the floo, and Harry sleepily rest his forehead against Severus' chest.

“I’ll be right there,” the medi-witch announced as Severus updated her, all traces of sleepiness immediately gone.  “Just take him to his bedroom.”

“No Sevvy, no,” the child begged, clinging weakly to his chest as the head of Slytherin filled the bathtub with cool water.

“I’m sorry, Harry, but your temperature is nearly forty degrees.  I’ll leave your boxers on, don’t worry,” Snape promised as he undressed the shivering 12-year-old.

“Wasn’t worried,” he mumbled, and Severus thanked every god or goddess that might exist that at least those monstrosities that called themselves human had never sexually assaulted poor Harry when he was locked in that hellhole in Privet Drive.  “Worried now," he exclaimed weakly as he watched the tub fill. "S’cold.”

“Shh, shh- just a few minutes, alright?  Can you do that for me?”

“I’d do anything for you,” Harry wasn’t even really too aware of what he was saying, the fever muddling his senses, or he might not have been so vulnerably honest.  “Wish it wasn’t this, though.”

“Oh, my Harry,” Severus couldn’t help a chuckle, and the scene was so tender no one would have believed it of him if they hadn’t seen it for themselves.  “If you ever stop sassing me, I’d be afraid you’d died.”

“‘M hard to kill, s’posedly,” Harry’s words were punctuated by a harsh cough and a feeble cry as he was placed gently into the cool water.

“And let’s keep it that way, shall we?”  Poppy bustled into Harry’s bathroom, med kit in hand.  His head lolled to the side and his eyes fluttered closed,and she tapped his cheek gently with her palm.

“Hey, gotta keep those eyes open so we could talk,” she told him.  “Tell me what hurts.”

“Everything,” he couldn’t help a little whimper.  “Even my ears- Erion would love it.” Poppy looked at him worriedly, afraid he was talking nonsense due to the fever.

“He’s the Greek guy that invented irony,” the preteen explained without needing prompting.  “‘Mione told me.”

“Oh, well let’s just take a look, then.”  The nurse splashed down into the bath, not worried about her clothing, and began casting diagnostic spells.  “Oh dear- ear infection and a nasty case of bronchitis,” she clucked. “You’ll be staying in bed for a fair while, but I suppose you can stay in your room here and I’ll come by to check on you, if that’ll be more comfortable.”

“Bed now?” Harry would surely be upset about the strict order of bedrest when he was feeling a bit better, but for now all his tired brain could process was the word bed, which sounded pretty good.

“Yes dear, bed now,” she agreed, pulling him out of the water and wrapping him in a towel as Severus summoned some pajamas- cotton shorts and an old Beatles t-shirt, homage to the only other band whose music Harry could remember hearing.  He took the bundled child from Poppy, casting drying charms to speed the process, despite what it did to Harry’s hair (Poof!).   He spelled the clothing onto Harry, who clung to what little warmth it provided as his guardian tipped a fever-reducing potion down his throat, as well as something for congestion and for pain.

“Cold,” he whimpered again as Severus tucked him into bed, protesting the fact that only a sheet had been layered over him.  He clung to the man’s robes, refusing to part from the warm body cradling him for the cool, thin sheets.

“We did just put him in a cold bath, and the fever reducer should start working soon,” Snape relented, turning to Poppy.  “If I stay with him to monitor his fever, might I cover him up?”

“Oh, alright- you’re a professional as well, so I trust you to call me, and to use your judgement over emotion if his temperature goes any higher.”

“Of course,” Severus nodded and pulled the duvet over the tiny second year in the middle of the downy mattress.

“Shh- I wouldn’t have been able to sleep anyway,” he soothed Harry’s raspy protests as he insisted he’d be fine being cold because he didn’t want to keep Severus awake.  “Just don’t tell your friends how soft I’m going,” he teased after Harry’s eyes slipped closed and they no longer had a medium of communication.

Poppy had left for a minute to get Fluffy, but she’d come back just in time to catch her colleague saying that to Harry (although really to himself, since he knew the child couldn’t hear it).  “I think they already know,” she said wryly as she unclipped the cerberus’ leash and shut the door softly behind her, her eyes lingering meaningfully on Harry’s fingers wrapped tightly around the man’s wrist.

Chapter Text

Harry slept defensively, Severus mused as he watched the child, his small fingers still clinging to his own wrist like a lifeline.  He slept curled up tightly in a ball on his side, as if trying to protect his vital organs from a kick he knew was coming- old habits die hard, and all that.  He took up barely any space in his own bed, the blankets walled around him like a fortress, and every so often he would whimper or cough without waking up. His fever was still there, but it had gone down to a little under 39 and stayed there, so at least Severus didn’t have to pull the covers off of him.

As for the potions master, his neck was aching from the awkward position and his throat was dry, but he stayed by Harry’s side as night wore on towards morning, and even when the sun’s rays pushed up over the hillside and eventually broke their way through the surface of the water to be seen down in the lake from the bedroom window, he did not move.  The potions that he and Poppy had given Harry meant he kept sleeping even when the sun was fully out, and as he’d expected, Minerva came down eventually, around the time breakfast would normally be letting out.

“I’ve cancelled your classes for the day,” she told him, casting a worried eye at Harry.

“Thank you,” he replied gruffly, taking the coffee she offered him in the hand that wasn’t holding Harry’s and downing it in one gulp.

“How is he?”

“Definitely could be better- don’t kill Lockhart yet though- that honour is all mine,” he snarled, tensing suddenly as Harry gave a whimper and thrashed in his sleep.

“I can’t- I’m sorry I can’t hear you, please just write down the chores,” he begged an invisible demon, eyes still closed and shaking somewhat.  “I can still do them- please, don’t hit me again!”

Severus threw the empty coffee cup to the floor, the few drops left beading harmlessly off the stain-proof carpet, and softly ran his other hand through Harry’s hair, fingers carding tenderly along his scalp.  They couldn’t communicate with Harry’s eyes closed, so he was trying to comfort him in the only way he could- with gentle touches, not harsh ones.

“The last time his ears hurt this badly was when he went deaf, so it must be bringing up some unpleasant memories,” he explained to Minerva, whose tight expression said she already knew as she sat gingerly at the edge of Harry’s bed to rub his back carefully.

“His friends were worried when neither of you came to breakfast- I sent them onto class and told them that Harry was just a bit under the weather.  I had to promise them a visit later, else they would have been skipping school and knocking down your door,” she said as the sick second year gradually calmed down and slipped back into a more peaceful sleep.

“I figured as much- I had to slip Weasley a sleeping drought in his tea; little heathen was pacing the common room frantically waiting for Harry to come back, and he was giving off a nearly-intolerable amount of heat.”

“Oh come now, you know you’re fond of him,” Minerva teased quietly.

“Just because you have a strange susceptibility for Weasleys doesn’t mean I do- I merely tolerate my own,” he answered, just as Charcoal came in from her nighttime hunt and shoved up under Severus’ arm to curl into Harry, who clung to the cat with his free arm but maintained his grip on the potions master.

They were quiet for a moment, the only sounds Harry’s raspy breathing and the cushioned padding of Fluffy’s footfalls along the carpet as he paced the door, guarding it.  “I suppose,” Severus broke in eventually, “that I find young Ronald’s loyalty… endearing… since it is not so Hufflepuffian as to be extended to the entire school.” The admission was halting, reluctant, as if he were afraid the twins would suddenly pop in and taunt him endlessly for having even a remote partiality to the family.

“I’ve rarely seen two friends become attached so quickly,” Minerva agreed.  “They’re really quite similar to Sirius and James.”

“Please, woman,” Severus scoffed.  “Both of them put together don’t cause a quarter of the trouble those ruffians could even on their own.”

“I meant,” Minerva emphasised, looking over her glasses at him, “that they were what the other needed- one a little lost child from a broken home and the other a boy who grew up loved but who didn’t quite know what to do with himself until someone came along who needed him.”

“Calling Sirius Black a little lost child vastly underestimates the amount of chaos he created,” Severus protested, preferring not to think about how broken his child had been underneath the strong exterior.

“And yet, you choose to live with him and Remus for Harry’s sake, and the house is still standing.”  The Gryffindor’s smile was infuriating.

“Only because I keep it that way- I came in from the grocer’s once to find Harry keeping the mutt from sticking a fork in the toaster to pull his bagel out, for Merlin’s sake!” The hand not being gripped by Harry moved sharply to accentuate his point.

“Well, as fun as this was, I have a class to teach,” Minnie ignored Severus’ complaint about the difficulty of living with his two schoolmates and stood up.  “Let me know if there are any changes.” She motioned towards Harry, and Snape nodded.

Deep black eyes cast around the bedroom as Severus sat in silence with Harry, and eventually he summoned a book from the shelf out of sheer boredom.

“Spiderman,” he read from the cover, flipping it open with his free hand.  “Sounds like a transfiguration gone wrong, but what else is there to do?”

There was a pile of finished comics about the adventures of Peter Parker lying in the chair next to him when Harry eventually stirred, his eyes opening slowly and his hands reaching for his aching head.  Severus waved his wand to shut the curtains and then again to turn on a lamp just bright enough so that Harry could see to read his lips.

“How are you doing?” he asked the child.

“Hurts,” Harry opened his mouth to say he was fine when a cough tore up from his chest to his throat.

“I know, and I’m very proud of you for being honest with me even though you have a hard time admitting how you feel,” the man praised softly as he conjured a potion from his stores.  “Here- this will make you feel better, and then we can get a little breakfast into you. Do you think you can manage some tea and buttered toast?”

“Yea,” Harry nodded.  “I’m really thirsty.”

“We’ll get you something cold too- water or pumpkin juice?”

“Water,” the preeteen croaked.  “Please.”

“Of course,” Severus agreed as he conjured a glass and filled it from his wand, still somewhat surprised at the extent of Harry’s politeness- very few children would remember their manners when they were feeling so awful.  He helped him carefully into a reclining position and held the glass to Harry’s chapped lips as he drank eagerly.

“Careful, you’ll choke.  Just take your time, and you can have more if you want- it’s not going anywhere.   I’m not going anywhere,” he added softly,to himself, but Harry, of course, could read lips, so it didn’t matter at what volume he said something (as Severus was well aware).

“Thanks,” Harry said, although the gratefulness in his eyes held more profundity than the word ever could, and it hurt the older man that a twelve-year-old should be so touched by a parent sitting by their bedside- it was something they all should take for granted; it was a responsibility.

If you were here, Lily, he’d have grown up like this, he thought, a swell of nausea churning his stomach.  Harry’s gravelly voice soon pulled him out of his mauldin thoughts, thankfully.

“You’re reading Spiderman,” his fever-blurred eyes lit up a little.  “Don’t tell me what happens in that one, though,” he pointed to the volume in Severus’ lap.  “I haven’t had time to catch up yet.”

“Probably because Flint’s been working you all to the bone- I knew I should have said something- no doubt that’s how you got so ill so fast.”

“Don’t blame yourself,” Harry ordered.

“I’m not,” Severus lied.  “I’m blaming Flint- he needs to keep his obsessive crush for Wood out of his duties as captain.”

“You think they’re in love too?” Harry smiled brightly, his eyes opening a bit wider.  “I knew it.”

“Yes, well- you’re a very smart boy, just like your mother… and your father,” he forced himself to add, knowing he needed to be mature and keep his own problems with James out of Harry’s upbringing.

“You talk a lot about my mum- did you and dad ever talk?”  Harry asked innocently, and Severus bit back a sigh.

“You know how the mutts and I were… how do you kids say it these days- frenemies?” he began, feeding Harry the edited version that he and the other two had decided on.  While both his godfathers and Severus had told some stories individually, none of them talked much about their interactions with each other during their own Hogwarts days, not wanting to disillusion Harry too much about the people he looked up to- they’d all done mean things, and the poor child had suffered enough without them bursting the unsullied idea that all the pranks they’d ever traded were as harmless and fun as the ones they did these days.

“Yeah,” Harry nodded eagerly, before gripping his head, and Severus winced in sympathy- sinus headaches were truly awful.

“We were like that,” Severus finished, and Harry very carefully cocked his head.

“I woulda thought you and dad would have gotten along better than you did with Sirius- I mean, he was a little more mature, right?  Not as much of a dunderhead?”

The head of Slytherin couldn’t hold back a baritone chuckle.  “On the dunderhead scale, your father ranked somewhere above Sirius but below Remus, and the three were always together.”

“With Wormtail,” Harry’s face darkened.

“Yes, with Wormtail.  People can go down bad paths, Harry, when they have weakness of character.  Luckily,” he finished, buttering a last slice of toast for the boy, “that’s something you’ll never have to worry about.”  Harry was silent for a moment, finishing his toast and his usual regime of potions, before he spoke up again.

“Hey Sev?”

“Yes, Harry?”

“How come you’re not in any of the memories my parents left me?  I mean, you were mum’s best friend, right? So you would have been like, another godfather.  How come you weren’t there- were you alright?”

“I was fine, Harry,” Severus sighed, touched by Harry’s concern and hating what he was about to do.  “Physically, at least… do you know how I said I made some bad decisions in my youth?”

“Yeah,” Harry nodded, imperceptible enough that it wouldn’t aggravate his headache, and hung on to his every word.

“It had something to do with that- I was… not the type of person your mother would have allowed around you, when you were at that age.  I… I made bad decisions similar to Wormtail’s.”

“Oh,” Harry was silent for a moment, hands folded neatly in his lap, as he took in the information, and Severus grew more and more anxious- he’d ruined his relationship with the one person who meant anything to him anymore, hadn’t he?  And he deserved it.

“Well, you went back,” Harry said decisively, “and Wormtail didn’t- that makes you better.  I don’t care what happened then- you’re here for me now, and that’s what matters.” His reasoning was so guileless, his green eyes holding not a trace of bitterness or malice, that Severus felt even guiltier about the things he’d done back then.

“Oh Harry,” he laughed a little, self-deprecating.  “You’re a far better person than I’ll ever be, you know that?”

“You gotta ignore the little voice,” Harry said suddenly, tilting his head.  “The little voice that tells you you’re worthless, or hopeless, or a freak- it’ll eat you alive if you let it, and then you’ll have no energy left to try to be good.  Trust me, I know.” The emotion on his face was raw, painful, and Severus’ heart clenched.

“Don’t you ever listen to that little voice,” he told Harry, putting as much emphasis as he could into his expression as he signed each word slowly and carefully, so there could be no missing it.  “Nothing it tells you is true- you’re a wonderful person, Harry James Potter, and you didn’t deserve any of the bad things that happened to you.”

“I’m learning that, now,” Harry said, smiling a little.  “But you have to too- we all do. It’s easier to learn together, you know.”

“Yes,” Severus agreed.  “Together- we’ll learn together.”  And there was no together he’d rather be a part of.

Chapter Text

Harry’s friends were rather unhappy to learn that he was more than ‘a little under the weather,’ and Ron ran up immediately upon seeing him lying there, propped up against the pillows, and looking (for his skin tone) rather pale.

“Oh Merlin, he’s burning up!” Ron wailed, putting a hand to his forehead.

“That’s you, dimwit,” Blaise rolled his eyes at the redhead.  “Your temperature never goes below like, forty degrees these days.”

Meanwhile, Hermione, who had taken it upon herself to become a de-facto nurse in case the need should arise (seeing all the trouble that had already found she and her friends thus far, she didn’t think it was a bad idea), was casting a temperature-reading charm on Harry.  “Thirty-eight point seven,” she pronounced. “Not too bad. For reference,” she cast the charm on Ron, “your temperature is… forty point two.”

“Yes, about that- Poppy would kill me if she knew I was letting you explore your fire magic, so don’t you dare tell her,” Severus warned the youngest Weasley son.  “And tell the fire to back up a little- she’ll be here to check on Harry soon, and if she sees you smoking round the ears she’ll strap you in right next to Harry and I’ll never be heard from again.”  When Severus had walked in on Ron practicing fire magic in the dormitories a few weeks ago, he’d figured his options were A) to let him keep practicing under his careful eye, seeing as he’d been doing so for a significant amount of time already and hadn’t yet burst into flames, or B) to stop him, anger all his petulant second years, and then tell Pomfrey, who would then skin him alive for ‘not keeping a close enough eye on him.’  He, understandably, chose the former, but now with Poppy and Ron about to be in the same room, he feared he was walking a fragile line.

“You got it, boss,” Ron did a cheesy imitation from one of the cliche mafia movies he and Harry had watched over the summer.

“How many times must I tell you not to call me that- I’m losing all authority, it seems,” their head of house grumbled, but he was ignored.

“This bedroom is dope,” Pansy exclaimed, looking around.

“You really can’t pull off a word like dope with that posh Norfolk accent, Pans,” Tracey rolled her eyes at their dorm mate.

“I thought you sounded great,” Harry piped up from the bed, and Pansy’s button nose wrinkled cheerfully as she smiled at him.

“Thank you,” she said, before recognition dawned on her face.  “Why, you…”  

“I will never get tired of that,” Harry laughed, before descending into a rasping, hacking cough that had everyone looking at him in concern.

“Relax guys, I’m not dying,” he said weakly, when he eventually stopped coughing, but his joke landed off-base.  “Uh-oh,” he squeaked suddenly, as the door opened. “Here comes Madame Pomfrey.” He burrowed under the covers, as if hiding there could protect him from the determined mothering of the medi-witch.

“You know,” she told him as she lifted the duvet.  “Just because you can’t hear me calling for you doesn’t mean I won’t come get you anyway.”

“What if I close my eyes?” he murmured, before shutting his eyelids and effectively ending the conversation.  He chirruped in indignation as Poppy still reached under his arms and pulled him back to the head of the bed. Then she prodded a ticklish spot on his side and he opened his eyes to bat her away.  In the interim, she shoved a potion at him.

“Foiled again,” Harry grumbled, making a face as he swallowed the brew.

“Ah yes, such an evil creature I am, wanting you to get healthy and well again.”  The nurse quirked an eyebrow at him.

“Tastes icky,” her patient responded around the muggle thermometer she shoved in his mouth to double-check her diagnostic charms.

“Well,” she shut her bag, humming softly, as she handed him another potion, “if you’re a good little patient and rest up, you’ll only have to stay in bed a week.”

“Only?!” Harry pouted, crossing his scrawny arms over his chest.

“Yes, little one, only- bronchitis is a tricky thing, not to mention the ear infection,” she reminded him.

“You’ve got an ear infection?” Draco asked him in sign language.  “That’s just…”

“Cruel and ironic- yes, I know,” Harry sighed out loud.

Luckily, Poppy was so busy with Harry that she only gave Ron’s forehead a cursory feel, and since he had ordered the fire down deep, his temperature was cool enough to satisfy her exacting standards, and she went away, pacified and tossing a warning over her shoulder that Harry’s friends were ‘only to stay and bother her patient for another ten minutes, Merlin help Severus if he didn’t enforce it.’

“Alright, you heard her,” Severus ordered when ten minutes had passed.  “Out- my hide’s on the line.”

“But do we really value you that much?” Pansy pretended to think as she ever-so-carefully ran a comb through Harry’s mess of hair.

“Five points from Slytherin for being a cheeky little monster, Parkinson, and you can be the first out the door,” he groused.

“Taking points won’t change the fact that you’re going soft,” she sing-songed as she left.  “The old Severus wouldn’t have missed his classes to sit with a sick student.”

“Yes well, I certainly wouldn’t do it for you,” he called after her back, and Ron actually tried to high-five him for the rebuttal as they all filed out.  He was not successful.

“Wanna play exploding snap?” Harry asked hopefully, and Severus knew he should say no but couldn’t bring himself to do it.

“Alright- one game, and then you rest- yes, I know you’ve been sleeping all day,” He anticipated Harry’s next sentence before he could get it out.  “It’s called recovery.”  

“Rather boring, that,” Harry sighed, but he smiled as Severus brought out the pack of cards and began shuffling them- he already knew that if he tilted his head at just the right angle, he could probably get two games out of his guardian before he tucked him back in for another nap.

Three days and countless games of exploding snap later and Severus couldn’t help but wonder if Harry would enjoy the game as much if he could hear the annoying noise the cards made when someone (usually Severus) lost.  But he didn’t say anything- even little boys as well-behaved as Harry loved explosions, and he wasn’t about to take away what small amusements his sniffling child could enjoy from the safety and comfort of his bed.

“I win again,” a raspy little voice declared cheerfully as Severus brushed soot off the sleeves of his robes.

“Yes, it seems you do,” Severus tried not to sound amused, but playing card games with Harry was a wonderful distraction from that guilty little voice in his head.  He knew he didn’t deserve Harry at all, and that his actions in the past were at the root of most if not all of Harry’s suffering, but Harry liked being around him, for whatever reason, and he wasn’t so Gryffindor as to take that away just because he, Severus, didn’t deserve the light the little Slytherin with the big green eyes brought into his life.

“Now, however,” he pulled himself out of the mire of self-deprecation, if for no other reason than because Harry would want him to, “it’s time for lunch.  Do you think you can handle something a little heavier today, like beef and barley stew?”

“Yes please,” Harry agreed immediately- he loved beef and barley stew, and the smell of it would always taunt him when he was cooking for the Dursleys in the autumn and winter, since he knew he wouldn’t be allowed any.

“Mmm, house elves are amazing,” he said around the spoon in his mouth when their lunch appeared, and down in the kitchen, pots and pans clattered as hundreds of little voices squeaked in exaltation.  Severus laughed and rolled his eyes, and Harry, who hadn’t heard the incredibly loud commotion (for obvious reasons) looked at him quizzically.

“I think you broke them,” he signed, face still mirthful.  “House elves are wired to automatically tune in whenever anyone mentions them, in case the person should require something from them, so they could hear you, and I quite think you’ve just made their year, if not their entire lives.”

“They’re really not used to being told how awesome they are?” Harry inquired as he spooned some vegetables into his mouth.  “How can people not love house elves?”  (Down in the kitchen, more squeaking).

“People tend to take things for granted, Harry; you’re very unusual- in a good way, of course-” he was quick to clarify when Harry’s face showed the beginnings of anxiety, “in that you don’t, and that you appreciate even the smallest things.”

“I really like it here,” Harry said.  “And… and it’s really nice to be told I’m grateful.  The Dursleys said all the time that I wasn’t and I thought- I thought maybe I was being punished because I didn’t appreciate what I did have.”

And what did you have? Severus thought savagely, a few more murder ideas for the Dursleys coming into his mind.  But he forced himself to stay calm, and to Harry he merely said “They didn’t deserve any of your appreciation, Harry, and they didn’t deserve you.   Now,” he could see that the boy was getting full, “why don’t you take two more bites and we’ll have some cobbler?”

“Ahh!  Watch it, Ron!” Theodore yelped later that night in the Slytherin dormitories as the redhead made a long band of flames dance around him, nearly singeing Theo as he came hurtling through the door.

“I put the sign on,” Ron protested shortly, his progress stopped as he was forced to call the flames back into him.  “You know, the one that says Beware of Fire that I put on our door whenever I’m practicing- not my fault you didn’t pay attention.”

“Yeah, yeah- whatever,” Theodore waved off the explanation indifferently.  “Shut up- you’re gonna wanna hear this!”

“What has got you all in a tizzy?” Draco looked up from playing with the newest muggle trinket his mother had found for him while trying out different retail jobs- a thing called ‘silly putty’ that was rather calming to squish between his fingers.

“I’m about to tell you,” their friend grit impatiently.  “Luna’s a fairy!”

“What are you on?” Blaise snorted, raising an eyebrow at him and going back to his ballet magazine.  “She doesn’t have wings, you dipshit.”

“Okay, yeah, I’ll give you that, you great arse-sniffing prat, but she’s part fairy then, because today I walked past and saw her in the light, and she was shimmering a little bit.”

“Trick of the light,” Greg grunted, trying to puzzle out his Transfiguration essay with Vincent.

“That’s what I’d have thought too, if I hadn’t found this,” he thrust a book under their noses, and Ron picked it up.

“While most fey are sized at the palm of one’s hand or smaller, there is a rare species that reach around the height and weight of the average human, the only difference being the wings and different vein of magic that they wield.  These fairies have been known, on occasion, to breed with humans, and although this causes them to lose their wings and powers on the moment of… unification,” he made a face at the implications, “their children often inherit some of their powers, including a certain ability to manipulate light, as well as to see creatures invisible to the human eye, such as nargles and…” Ron put down the book, “snorklacks…”

“See?!” Theo broke in impatiently.  “Fairy- she’s always talking about that kind of stuff- it’s why people call her loony!”

“Where did you find this?” Blaise asked, picking up the book.

“Black market- my father won it along with some jewels from a hag at a gambling party in Knockturn Alley, but that’s not important.  The point is,” he gesticulated wildly.  “That you’re not the only student here who’s not completely human.”  He jabbed a thumb at Ron.

“Hey- nobody said anything about non-human, there’s just some old elemental blood in the family.”

“Don’t you get it, though?” Theo threw his hands up in exasperation and growled.  “This means that all that pureblood nonsense that our parents are always spouting off is a load of dragon dung- I mean, we already knew that, but this just proves it.  What if humans were never magical in the first place, and we’re all descended from some sorts of primordial magical beings that occasionally manifest stronger in some of us?!”

“That seems a bit of a conclusion to jump to from just a part-fey and a mid-level fire elemental,” Blaise said skeptically.

“Just stop being such a tosser for a minute and consider it,” Theo ordered.  “I mean, look at Draco- he’s got veela written all over him.  And the family line started in France, which is a popular habitat for them.”

“Just because Draco’s a little pointy,” Ron began, as the blonde sputtered in indignation.

“Who you calling pointy, Weasel?”

“Doesn’t mean that we’re all descended from some sort of magical creature- I mean, we interbreed occasionally, sure, and maybe that has some effect on magic, but if everyone came from different stuff, how would we even be able to standardize magic at all?” the redhead finished, ignoring Draco.

“I haven’t gotten that far yet,” Theo admitted.  “But I’m sure that I’m onto something- I just have to find more kids with unusual powers to prove it.  I’m sure Harry’s got something going on there, but I can’t figure out what kind of creature could channel ambient magic like that…”

“Look, be a mad scientist all you want, but don’t drag Harry into some crazy quest for answers,” Ron ordered sternly.  “Or you’ll have a lot more creature problems than just theoretical ones.”  He lit a fire in his palm to underscore the threat.

“Okay bro- no need to get like that about it- I just wanna do some research is all.  You know I’d never hurt Harry- he’s my friend too,” Theo raised his hands placatingly.

“Fine- I… I know,” Ron extinguished the flame and ran a hand through his hair.  “But Harry’s been through enough in his life, and you have to admit that you can get a bit crazy when you’re on one of your… missions…”

“Name one time,” Theo challenged, although his acceptance of Ron’s sort-of apology was implied as well in the teasing quirk of his mouth.

“When you tried to invent magical welding and accidentally glued all our trunks together in one giant blob,” Draco piped up.

“When you thought potions could be a gateway into magical micro-gastronomy and we had to sleep in the Hufflepuff dorms for a week while they fumigated the common rooms,” Blaise added.

“When you thought you could create a sidecar for broomsticks and-”

“I said name one!” Theo buttt in.

“So we’re not even gonna talk about the time you tried to make no-slip booties for the giant squid?”  They were all holding their ribs by now.

“I truly do hate you all.”

Chapter Text

“Are you sure you’re up for playing in the game today?” Severus asked Harry for the third time that morning as he glamoured his scars so he could change in the locker rooms.  “You did just get off of bedrest two days ago, and I could tell Flint to find someone else, or maybe we could postpone the game, or…”

“Sev- I’m fine,” Harry rolled his eyes but was not-so-secretly very touched.  The man hadn’t left his bedside the entire week, not even to sleep, which he’d done in the armchair, and he’d showered in Harry’s bathroom.   “You, however, look like you could use some rest.”

“And miss you play?- I think not.   Besides, the mutts will be there, and I will not stoop so low as to be a worse parent than two Gryffindors,” the potions master asserted disdainfully, and Harry merely rolled his eyes and smiled.

“I love you too- I’ll see you out there.”  Harry gave him a quick hug before grabbing his broom and his sports bag and heading out of their quarters, and Severus watched him go with a fond expression as he and Fluffy clamoured through the halls towards the entrance to the grounds, free to make as much noise as they liked now that Filch was no longer there to yell at them.

___

“Hey, Harry-” Marcus knelt down to give Harry some last-minute instructions, a serious expression on his face as they stood in a line with their brooms, facing the Gryffindor team, but catching the look on Snape’s as he glared at him from the stands, he swallowed what he’d been about to say.  “Um, have fun out there…”

“Thanks cap,” the little second-year replied, smiling endearingly at him, his big green eyes magnified by his prescription quidditch goggles.  “I will.” He gave a thumbs-up to Draco, who was sitting on the bench in his chaser uniform with the extra seeker robes beside him, waiting in case he, as the reserve, was needed.

Severus sat next to Sirius and Remus in the stands, watching Harry swoop around the pitch, his expression one of pure joy as his eyes sought out the snitch.

“He definitely looks better,” Remus said, referring to when they’d come to visit Harry when he was sick.  “Although he’s lost a bit of weight…”

“I know,” Severus sighed and tugged anxiously at a lock of his dark hair.  “He couldn’t afford to, either, and I’d really rather he didn’t play today, but I couldn’t bear to forbid him…”

“You really are a big softie now, aren’t you?” Sirius grinned mischievously at him as he playfully batted his arm.

“Shut it, mutt- I’d still have no qualms hexing you into next week.”

“Ooh!” Remus suddenly cringed.  “That was a close one!” Severus turned his neck so quickly he got whiplash but ignored it as he watched Harry narrowly miss a bludger.

Meanwhile, Harry’s goggles buzzed to let him know there was a bludger nearby, but the odd thing was that they kept buzzing, and Harry looked behind him to see that the large metal ball hadn’t gone off to attack another player as it ought to.  That was… strange. He looked at the other players to see if they’d noticed anything, dodging the bludger again as he went. As it came at him again, from the front this time, he caught a glint of gold on the other side of the pitch, and he took off towards it.  The bludger followed, but Harry hadn’t spent years dodging Uncle Vernon’s fists in narrow hallways just to be caught by a small metal ball in a wide-open space, and he danced around it with such skill that for a while, only people in the stands noticed anything was wrong.

“Time out!  Time out!” Severus waved his hands, calling pointlessly, but he wasn’t heeded, as the rules stated only a player could call a time-out, and Harry was too busy dodging the bludger to do so, although to be honest, he didn’t seem all that bothered by it in the first place.

“Flint, you idiot!  Stop staring at Wood and do something!”  he growled at the captain, who of course couldn’t hear him, and was in any case engaged in a furious round of batting the quaffle about as the game heated up by the goal post.  The Weasley twins, bless them, finally realised that their job was a bit too easy, and they exchanged wary looks with the Slytherin beaters, who seemed to be thinking the same thing.

“Oh no…” Fred groaned, as their eyes tracked the quaffle to the other side of the pitch.

“One of you stay and guard the players from the other bludger, the other come with me,” one of the Slytherin beaters, a muscular, dirty-blonde sixth-year girl, ordered the twins as she took off towards Harry, so that the game was still fair.

Harry, in the interim, was reaching for the snitch when… wham!   He saw a few stars as his elbow cracked and a few drops of blood spattered on the knee of his robes, but he was far too close and far too focussed to give up now.  Ignoring the near-constant vibration of his goggles and dodging the metal ball again, his knees held tightly to his broom as he reached for the snitch with his good arm.  Fred and the Slytherin beater got there just in time to keep the bludger from taking a good aim at the back of Harry’s head, just as little brown fingers closed around the snitch and he tumbled to the ground, smiling goofily with the snitch held in one hand as he cradled his other arm, bleeding, against his chest.

“What the hell was that?!” Severus looked at Sirius and Remus, who were already rushing down to the pitch as all four beaters struggled to wrestle the bludger into its case and Madame Hooch ordered Harry to just ‘stay down, dear.’

“Never fear- I am here!” Gilderoy Lockhart, who had pushed a number of students out of the way to get to the pitch first, shoved his way to Harry, who tried to scramble back warily.   “Brackium emendo!” he declared, waving his wand with a flourish, and Harry bit back a wince as another cracking noise was heard, this time in his shoulder.

“Oh,” the pompous git said, face falling a little.  “Well, that can happen sometimes- healing is an imprecise art, after all.  I’ll just try again-”

He had no chance to say anything more as three hexes hit him simultaneously from the wands of Sirius, Remus, and Severus, and Lockhart made an odd gurgling noise before a pop was heard by all but Harry, and a flash was seen by all including Harry as a yellow newt appeared on the pitch, covered in boils and sprouting a human arm from its back.  Seeing that Severus appeared to be raising his foot to crush it, he scurried away under the stands as the three men rushed to Harry.

“Merlin’s pants, pup!  Are you alright?!” Sirius yelped as he leaned down to have a look at his godson’s arm, which was now broken in two places.

“I caught the snitch, Pads!” he declared, a goofy little smile on his face, seeming perfectly content now that Lockhart was no longer bothering him, despite his obvious injuries.

“He gets this from you,” Severus muttered to the sky, “he’s all Lily otherwise, but this quidditch madness is all your fault.”  He hoped that his dead best friend was also telling James Potter off for passing along his quidditch-obsessed genetics to the small little child who would really be much better off staying on the ground, thank you very much! as he pulled a fussing Padfoot aside.

“Let someone through with actual medical experience, please,” he ordered, and Sirius didn’t argue, seeing as he had a point- his anxious hovering really wasn’t doing Harry any good, and neither was Remus’.

“Look Sev, I caught the snitch!” Harry chirruped, showing him the fluttering golden ball.

“Yes, I see that- you did very well,” he praised, not wanting to make the happy look fall off his face.  It wasn’t really Harry’s fault, anyway- nobody else had been paying enough attention, and he had simply focussed his dodging efforts in a productive direction.  There was no need to ruin the poor child’s mood with his anger towards everyone else involved. “Now, let’s have a look at that arm, hmm?” Harry offered him the arm holding the snitch, still on a haze of victory, and behind him, Remus and Sirius couldn’t hold back a chuckle- that was such a James’ move, right there.

“The other arm, little one,” Severus prompted, and Harry’s cheeks lit up a little as he remembered that he was injured and realised everyone was looking at him.

“Oh, er, right,” he blushed again and brusquely pulled his robes to the side, causing the others to flinch at the roughness of the movement.

“Here, no need to hurry- be delicate, Harry, so it doesn’t hurt worse,” Severus chided gently, very carefully prodding the injury with long fingers.  “Oh, that’s an overnight heal right there,” he announced as he examined the area.

“But I just got out of bed,” he complained, showing his first real dissatisfaction with the situation.  Poppy, who, trusting Severus, had gone back for extra med supplies, finally came down to the pitch.

“Then you’re really not going to like it when I tell you that this is going to require a sling for a few days, probably even a week,” she frowned as she started placing a temporary splint on the injury so she could get him to the hospital wing.  “It would have only been a couple days were it just the elbow, but then that pompous arse had to go and make it worse- I will be filing an official complaint with the school board for this, mark my words.”

“Not if I kill him first,” Severus snarled, not in the least bit joking.

Sirius and Remus were glad that Harry’s head had been turned and he thus hadn’t read the man’s lips.  “No,” the dog animagus ordered sternly. “He suffered from having one guardian in Azkaban when he should have been there for him, and he doesn’t need another.  If you try to go off and do something stupid, Merlin help me, Severus Snape, I will hex you so hard you won’t be able to sit down for a week.”

Remus looked at Sirius, surprised at the amount of maturity his boyfriend had shown- and moreover surprised that he had been more mature than Severus, in that situation.  “He’s right, and by Circe’s tits does that sound strange,” the werewolf agreed, one eye watching Harry to make sure he was still arguing with Poppy about not needing to stay in the hospital wing and not tracking their conversation.

“Thank you, Moony, for your faith in me,” Sirius deadpanned sardonically, but a smile was tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“Fine, but he better have the sense to stay away from me until I’ve had at least two calming draughts and a shot of firewhiskey, or I won’t be responsible for my actions,” the potions master acquiesced grudgingly.

“Hermione,” Remus turned to the group of Harry’s friends.  “Do you think you can summon a terrarium? Sirius and I are going to go catch a newt, and I think he deserves a place to think about the consequences of his monumentally stupid actions.”

“With pleasure,” Hermione’s hand tightened vindictively around her wand, and she turned to Pansy.  “Go get that itching powder you keep in your trunk for emergencies- we’re going to make a very special habitat for our new amphibian friend.”

___

“How ‘bout an IOU?” Harry bartered later, his arm in a sling and healing potions coursing through his veins.

“Yes,” Poppy said, picking up his legs (which didn’t reach the floor) from where he was swinging them over the side of the bed and placing them back on the mattress.  “You owe me one night in hospital, now.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he pouted, his lower lip jutting out just a bit in the most adorable way.

“Come now,” the nurse rubbed a thumb along Harry’s cheek, a smile blossoming on her stern face at the adorable image before her, “where’s that well-behaved little darling the teachers are always raving about?”

“He’ll be with you when you let him go,” Harry grumbled, looking longingly out the window at the blustery grounds.

“What, and not spend any time with your Aunt Poppy?  You wouldn’t do that to an old woman, would you?” Harry looked sideways suspiciously at her, knowing well she was making use of a Slytherin tactic but still affected by the kicked-puppy look she was adopting.

“I have ice cream and exploding snap- we can play as many times as you like,” she dangled the bribe, and Harry relented.

“Fine- you win this round, Aunt Poppy,” he tried out the name she’d given herself, and she beamed so brightly Harry couldn’t help but smile as well.  “But you’re going down in exploding snap.”

___

In the dungeons, a group of eager first-year Slytherins stood around a deformed yellow newt in a glass container, watching the human arm it sprouted scratch its back frantically as a cursed Lockhart tried to find a place to rest his webbed feet that wasn’t covered in the extra-strength, long-lasting itching powder Pansy had gotten from George and Fred.  He was of course unsuccessful.

“So, what are we going to do when we have to have class with him again?” Ron eventually addressed the elephant in the room.  “I mean, Dumbledore refuses to fire him, and I’d rather not fail his class.”

“There’s a spell for that,” Hermione said flippantly.  “It’s called obliviate.   It can cause minor mental damage, of course, but really, how much worse can he get?”

“Is anyone else ever… scared of Hermione?” Millie asked their other roommates.

“Oh, absolutely,” Pansy responded, a strange gleam in her eye as she stared at the muggleborn.

Chapter Text

Harry had never been a super heavy sleeper, not since the Dursleys, despite the fact that noises couldn’t bother him.  He also preferred to sleep curled up in a ball on his left side, but with that arm in a sling, he couldn’t, so his sleep was more fitful than usual.  Thusly, when he felt someone dabbing his forehead with a cold cloth in the middle of the night, he was roused immediately.

“Wha?” he groaned, only to see a house elf that was most certainly not Kreacher standing above him.  He squinted, groping blindly for his glasses- this elf looked familiar.  

Eventually he gave up trying to find the spectacles and just willed them to him with his magic, clumsily putting them on one-handed.  “You- you’re the elf from the summer,” he gasped. “The one that left me that note saying not to go back to Hogwarts! What are you doing here?”

“Dobby has come to check on Harry Potter,” the elf squeaked, the subtitles forming above his head.  “To make sure Harry Potter leaves Hogwarts for his own protection.”

“I’m not leaving Hogwarts,” Harry asserted firmly.  “I like it here, and Sev lives here, and all my friends go here.”

“But Harry Potter must listen to Dobby!” the little creature pulled his ears in distress.  “Harry Potter wouldn’t be discouraged when Dobby took his mail, or when Dobby blocked the platform, and not even Dobby’s bludger worked- Harry Potter must leave Hogwarts!”

“Wait- your bludger?  The platform was you!  Dobby, why are you trying to kill me- and Ron, in the process?”

“No, not kill you, never kill noble Harry Potter- Dobby only wanted Harry Potter injured enough so that he would have to go home, where he would be safe.   And Dobby didn’t mean for Harry Potter’s Wheezy to be hurt in the process- Dobby is sorry!”  Dobby began wailing and pulling his ears again, and Harry reached his good arm out to pat him on the back and try to calm him down.

“Dobby, what is this danger you are talking about- is it the Chamber?”

“Dobby doesn’t know any more than you do- Dobby only knows that danger is being planned, and that Lucius Malfoy is behind it.”  He began sobbing.

“Wait- Lucius Malfoy?  How do you know this- how can he be behind it?  He hasn’t been anywhere near the school?”  Harry tried not to raise his voice at the elf, even though he was desperate for answers.

“Dobby doesn’t know!  Dobby just knows that Lucius is up to no good, but Lucius doesn’t trust Dobby, so Dobby cannot be finding out more!”  The elf suddenly startled for no apparent reason, so Harry assumed he must have heard a noise, as he suddenly popped away, leaving behind an old book on the bed.

Harry picked it up, struggling to lift the large, dusty tome with only one arm.   A guide to Basic Fire Elementals.   He assumed it was for Ron- a sort of apology for hurting them, since Dobby, despite his… unorthodox methods of showing it, genuinely seemed to be trying to protect Harry from… something.   Harry wasn’t about to leave, though- not if it meant his friends and family would be in trouble.

The source of the noise Dobby must have heard soon became apparent as Aunt Poppy and Aunt Minnie came up the stairs, carrying the petrified body of Parvati Patil, dripping wet.

“What’s going on?” he asked nervously, padding out of bed.

“Oh, Harry…” Minerva sighed.  “We were hoping you were sleeping- I was coming up to check on you when I found Parvati, stiff as a board, beside Myrtle’s bathroom, which was flooded.  She has a tendency to sleepwalk, poor dear- it seemed to have gotten her into a bind.”

“Who’s Myrtle?” Harry was worried about Parvati, of course, but he had a feeling that this ‘Myrtle’ might be an important piece to understanding what happened.

“Oh, right- Myrtle is a ghost in the first-floor girl’s bathroom.  She’s rather sad rather often- tends to flood the bathroom, hence why Miss Patil is so wet.”

“Why is she sad so often?” Harry asked.

“Well, she- you know what, I’m not entirely sure.  I assumed it was because she died so young, but come to think of it, I’ve never actually asked.”  Minerva looked as if she hadn’t considered such a thing before- the ghost had been there since she was in fifth year, and they hadn’t really crossed paths when the younger Ravenclaw was alive, so somewhere along the line she’d started to think of her as just another feature of the castle.

“Maybe that could help us, and at the very least, she might like someone to talk to,” Harry mused, and the women looked at him with soft eyes- he really was such a selfless, considerate person.

“Yes, dear, but that’s a worry for tomorrow- back in bed now, Parvati will be fine as soon as we’ve mixed the mandrake solution,” Poppy helped Minerva lay the Indian girl on one of the beds and draw the curtains before she led Harry back to his own.

“Still, something’s gotta be done…” Harry trailed off.

“Why don’t you let the adults worry about that, darling- it will all be alright.  I promise,” she swore ardently as she tucked him back into bed with a kiss on the forehead.

___

“What’s wrong, Har?” Ron asked the next day during study hall as his best friend chewed an apple slice with a thoughtful, preoccupied expression.  

“I feel like the the Chamber has something to do with the snake I heard in the walls, but it’s not just that- I’m sure I’m forgetting something important, but I can’t think of it…”

“Hey, don’t worry about it, mate,” the redhead told him as he gently reached out to rub the shoulder that wasn’t in a sling.  “You’ve had a busy couple of days, what with being sick and then quidditch and now your arm.”

“It… something to do with being sick, I think- a strange dream, or something…” Harry chewed his lip anxiously.

“It was probably just the potions.  You dreaming about the answer to the chamber problem is about as likely as sweet little muggleborn Colin being the criminal mastermind behind it,” Ron laughed.

“You’re probably right, but it’s still annoying when you can’t remember something,” Harry agreed.  “Hey- I think I’m gonna go see the ghost in the bathroom; I’ll meet you back in the common room.”

“Here, I’ll come with you,” Ron insisted, putting down the book on elementals- as interesting as it was, he was nervous about letting Harry go alone anywhere with everything that had happened lately, no matter how he tried to assure Harry it was nothing.

“I’d go with you, but she’s not very fond of any of us that have tried to use her bathroom,” Hermione sighed, tugging at one of her curls.  “Rather sucks when you’ve really got to pee.”

“Alright, so it’ll just be us two, then,” Harry said.  “Love you ‘Mione.” He gave her a one-armed hug and a quick kiss on the cheek before he and Ron scurried in the direction of moaning Myrtle.

“Tell Harry I love you both too!” Hermione called after them, and Ron signed it to Harry, whose face lit up like it always did when someone showed him affection.

The ground outside of Myrtle’s bathroom was all puddles, and Harry lifted the hem of his robes as he trudged through it and slid the door open.  He couldn’t hear the bemoaned wails like Ron could, so he was far less hesitant.

“Hello there,” he called out.  “I’d really like to talk to you, Myrtle, but I’m deaf, so would you pretty please come out so I can lipread?  I know you’re probably really sad, and I understand, but maybe talking about it would make you feel better.” The door opened slowly, and the creaking Ron heard sounded rather ominous.

“You really want to talk to me?” She asked, and Harry could see equal amounts of hope and suspicion in her translucent face.

“Of course- you seem like you could use a friend, and you probably have a lot of good stories to tell, having been here so long and all,” he responded kindly, stepping closer.  He cast a drying charm on the ground and sat down.

“Well, I do have all the good gossip,” she agreed.  “I mean, you’ll never believe what Lisa Turpin told Padma Patil that she saw Cho Chang and Peggy Haywood doing in the library…”

An hour of good gossip and the beginning of a beautiful friendship later, and Harry got around to asking Myrtle for a favour.

“Hey Myrt?” he began cautiously, hoping she wouldn’t think he’d only come to get something out of her- because he hadn’t, and he’d been genuinely enjoying her company.

“Yes Harry?” she asked, smiling for the first time in years.

“Er, someone got petrified outside of your corridor last night, and I was hoping, if you’re not too busy, that is, that you could keep an eye out for anything suspicious for me?  You don’t have to, of course, but I thought-”

The ghost cut him off almost gleefully.  “You need my help?  Me? I can help you with something and be useful?”

“Well, I think you’re useful either way- you’re a lovely person to be around, when someone takes the time to get to know you, but yes, it would be a humongous help if you could do this for me.”  Harry scratched the back of his neck uncertainly.

“My pleasure.”  Myrtle beamed, and for the first time that she could remember, she felt truly happy.

Chapter Text

“Hey Myrt,” Harry greeted his friend as he walked into her bathroom with Fluffy, dried off a spot for them, and sat down, leaning comfortably against his dog.  “What’s up?”

She zoomed out of her toilet seat and hovered in a seated position with her legs crossed right in front of him.  “I’ve got news,” she said gleefully, and Harry leaned forward eagerly.

“What- is it unusual?” he asked.

“Well, Lavender has a crush on Parvati and was telling Ginny Weasley about it, and Parvati has a crush on Lavender and was telling Luna about it, but they’re both afraid to tell the other.”  The ghost rubbed her translucent hands together- her life was much more exciting since Harry started coming around, and without her constant wailing, more people came into the bathroom, which meant more gossip, which meant her life was even more exciting.

“I mean, I can see that, but I was thinking more along the line of the thing in the walls,” Harry redirected gently.

“Oh, nothing about that,” she waved a hand dismissively.  “But if I do hear something about that, you’ll be the first to know.  Anyway, I know I’m sort of the school gossip, but if you tell me who you have a crush on, I promise I won’t tell anyone.”

“Er, I don’t have a crush on anybody,” he replied, cheeks lighting up, but he couldn’t help the flash of Hufflepuff robes and warm brown eyes that popped into his mind- they were playing Hufflepuff in their next match at the end of the month, and their seeker, Cedric Diggory, was so handsome.  Then again, the Ravenclaw seeker was pretty cute too, but according to Myrtle she was with Peggy Haywood at the moment.  Peggy’s parents weren’t to know about it yet, however, or they’d be in despair- after all, Peggy’s sister Penny was in a long-term relationship with Rowan Khanna, and they were currently hedging all their bets for grandchildren on Penny (why they wouldn’t just adopt, Harry didn’t know- he was getting rather off track at the moment).

“Are you sure?” Myrtle teased, recognizing the distant look in his eyes, but Harry wasn’t paying enough attention to see her talk.   “Harry!”   she got right up in his face so he’d come back to the conversation.

“Oh, sorry- what now?” His eyes finally came back in to focus on her.

“Geez, it’s hard to get your attention when you can’t hear- my mother always said my shrill voice made me impossible to ignore, but I suppose she was wrong in this case, now wasn’t she?  Anyway, there’s nobody who catches your eye?  Not even that cute blonde you share a dorm with- ooh!  Or that pretty black girl in the girl’s dorm- she’s cute!”

“I’m not even sure what I like, let alone who I like,” Harry protested- and honestly, the thought that he could like Hermione like that- she was like a sister to him!  He pointedly didn’t think about her question about Draco.

“Dear me- boys are rather slow on the uptake with this sort of thing,” Myrtle shook her head knowingly.

“You’re a cheeky little ghost, you know that?”

“Of course I do- I mean, you can’t spend fifty years around teenagers without picking some up, yeah?  And you’re even cheekier, so I don’t see any reason for you to make such a fuss about it.  Oh, speaking of fuss, you simply must hear about this conversation I overheard between Jenna Fischer and Julie Brockett- they saw Jamie and James in this hidden corridor just going at it, and not in like a sexy way, either- they were having an all out row- rather distasteful, really, the sort of language they were using.”

“Hey Myrt?”

“Yes, Harry?”  Myrtle stopped replaying the image of Cedric Diggory in the prefect’s bathroom from when she’d snuck in the other night and looked back at her friend.

“How do you know so much about… well, you know…”

“Oh, you mean sex,” she nodded wisely.  “Well, I look twelve, but I have been around the school just lying about for fifty years now- I was here for first and second-wave feminism, after all, so I know a lot.  And speaking of the seventies, there’s a number of cults I could direct you to, if you’re interested.”

“Oh, no thanks…” Harry blushed again, and Myrtle loved how easy it was to rile him up.  Harry, for his part, was thinking he’d made a friend around his own age, when really he’d found the ghostly equivalent of that odd great-aunt that has no kids, shows up drunk to the Holiday parties, and talks openly to kids about how ‘the body is beautiful’ and such.  Weird.

“Alright, but do tell me if your friend Neville is interested- there were a number of them that centred strongly around herbology- mostly snorting or injecting it, of course, but still.  A girl begins to wish a ghost could feel those sorts of things. The closest I ever get to ‘ascending to an astral plane’ or whatever is when I sort of disseminate and go through the plumbing really fast- quite a rush.  Ten out of ten would recommend- if you’re dead, of course.  Doesn’t quite work out as well for the living.”

“Um, thanks…” Harry was quite fond of Myrtle, but he noticed that a lot of their conversations went like this.

“I’ve been saving up all these useful tips for decades- you know, underneath the crushing depression and abject feelings of solitude and all that,” she said matter-of-factly, no doubt preparing to offer him more of her ‘wisdom.’

“I imagine you must have gotten rather bored, then,” Harry sympathised.

“Well, I was quite depressed, but I couldn’t exactly sleep it off, and well- I’m dead, so there was really nowhere else to go there.  But there was quite a lot to do when I was feeling up to it- I can get through locked rooms, you know, and do all sorts of things that I couldn’t when I was alive, for fear of dying.  It’s really not so bad- sometimes I think I’d like to move on, but I don’t know about the pearly gates or whatnot- I think the colour would rather wash me out, don’t you?”

“Um…”

“I mean, a deep sapphire would really set off my skin tone- well, I suppose I appear blue to you, but I was quite pale back in the day.  I prefer to call it fair, and a nice sapphire would make me feel very mermaid-like, I think. I do so like mermaids- the sirens and warm water species, I mean, not the awkward-looking selkies we have here.  Not that there’s anything wrong with being awkward, but green hair and pointed teeth doesn’t quite live up to the fantasy, now does it?”

“Er, they’re good at learning sign language… we can even have some basic conversations now.  It’s kind of fun.”

“But wouldn’t it be more fun to have those conversations with a siren?  I mean, think about it- everyone you know could be drowned immediately, but you’d be just fine, since you can’t hear a thing and all.”

“Well, I’d really rather none of my friends died…”

“Oh, it’s not quite so bad- I mean, it’s essentially like life, except there’s no food or cold and such.  And sometimes I miss eating, but Olive Hornby would always call me a glutton at meal times, so I don’t miss that…”

“Olive Hornby sounds like a jerk,” Harry said bluntly.

“Oh, she really was, and she grew up and went through three husbands, so I can’t be the only one who thought so.”

“Blaise’s mum has had eight husbands, and she’s pretty cool,” Harry pointed out.

“Fair point, but she’s cool because she kills them all and gets away with it- I mean, they deserve it, of course.  All nasty socialites with too much money they didn’t lift a finger for and no social graces- I personally saw one of her husbands try to grope a number of girls near my bathroom, so I’d say she did us all a favour.”

“O-kay…” Harry didn’t really know how else to respond to that.

“I mean, she really loved Blaise’s father, or so the pureblood gossip was at the time- I know quite a lot more about pureblood gossip than any other muggleborn, I’d say, just because of all the time I’ve hung around here- but after he died fighting death eaters, there really wasn’t much she could do about that now, no?  The bloke she married next was a right idiot, too- I mean, you assassinate a woman’s husband and then think you’ll be fine to marry her and that she had no idea it was you. Population control, that- I mean, honestly, what a right idiot!  I kind of liked number four- he was cute in school and all, but then it turned out he was running an awful house elf trafficking ring.  I’d love to know how she gets away with it each time, I would.”
“Maybe they’re just coincidences?” Harry put forth.

“Oh, my darlingest dearest little Harry- so naive, you precious bab.  She definitely picks them off one by one, and a great service she’s doing, too!  I think she probably has to get rid of them all different ways, yes?  I mean, poisoning wouldn’t work every time, for example, and then it’s really just a tired cliche- with it being a ‘woman’s weapon’ and what not.   I personally think that if they’d taught women to use a sword, we would have got it done a lot cleaner, but then again, poison is rather quiet, and women are quite good at not making a bloody scene like you blokes with your battle axes- oh goodness, I’ve probably been reading too many of those historical erotic novels again, but they’re quite easy to nab off the upper-years.  Just a bribe for Peeves and you’re good to go- I have to keep him from reading them first, though, which is an annoyance. He’s mean to me sometimes, but knowing the kind of absolute filth I read I think he goes easier on me than he used to.  Certainly easier on me than he does on you live ones.”  Myrtle had a talent for keeping up a constant stream of conversation that was often more awkward (for the listener) than a prolonged silence would have been.

“Myrtle, you’re great and all, but please don’t tell me about your porn books,” Harry begged, making a face, his wide eyes like those of a deer in headlights.

“Oh, alright- I’ll respect your right to be a little prude at this tender age, but in a few years… goodness, I do wish I’d lived long enough to try sex before I went…”

Yes, Harry decided- Myrtle definitely would have been crazy vodka aunt who knit her own toilet seat covers and said stuff like ‘stick it to the man!’ and she probably also would have smoked two packs a day.

“So,” Myrtle continued deftly, as if they’d been having a totally normal conversation, “what have you been up to lately?”

“Er, since we talked yesterday, I had a checkup with Aunt Poppy- I’ve grown a centimetre.” He said this glumly, clearly hoping it would have been more.

“Well that’s good then,” the ghost encouraged.

“A centimeter since last November, Myrtle- I’m pretty sure you’ve grown more than that!” he waved his hands wildly to punctuate his point, since he was talking out loud and didn’t need them to sign.

“Funny, but no- that’s impossible and you know it.  And technically you grew none at all for eleven months and then a centimetre this month, since you have a checkup every four weeks.”  Harry didn’t look too pleased to be reminded of Poppy’s intense health supervision regime for him.

“Gee, thanks,” he said sardonically, and she rolled her eyes at him, which was a little unsettling since one could see through her.

“You have the rest of your life to grow,” she reminded him.  “And if you do die young, well- you’ll have bigger problems.”

“You’re so comforting,” Harry quipped, deadpan, but he was rolling his eyes back at her and trying not to laugh.

“I am, aren’t I?” she glowed proudly.  “You’re very lucky to have found me, you know.”  Well, the other way around, really, but he didn’t need to know that- boys were really better when you could lead them along, in her opinion (in a loving way, of course- it’s simply that they get stressed out if they’re forced to think too much, she’d noticed).

“You’re thinking about how boys are dumb again, aren’t you?”

“How’d you know?” she asked, surprised- clearly this boy was even more different from the others than she’d thought.

“You get this look on your face- and you’re thinking or talking about how boys are dumb a lot, so it’s very recognizable.  Plus, Aunt Minnie makes the same one sometimes when Sev states the obvious, but other than that I’m not sure what about certain things men say are dumb, but I’m compiling a list so nobody ever looks at me like that.  Pansy’s very helpful in that regard. I mean, a lot of them seem like common sense- you don’t ask a woman if she’s on her period- and that was an enlightening conversation, let me tell you- Pansy goes into far too much detail, so I think you’d get along.  Also, you’re not supposed to tell them they’re being crazy, which still seems like common sense.  And we’re supposed to close our legs when we sit so we don’t take up all the space. Pansy’s allowed to ‘manspread’,” Harry stopped to make air quotes around the new term, “though, because she’s a lesbian, or at least that’s what she’s told me.”

“Keep her around,” Myrtle nodded sagely.  “She’ll educate you well.”

___

“So, Harry,” Hermione signed later as they were in the common room, “I’ve been trying to find out more about what sort of snake you might have heard in the walls, and what it might have to do with the chamber situation- tell me, did this snake have an accent of any kind?”

“Oh, it sounded very New Jersey- no, Hermione, it did not have an accent, because I am deaf and therefore cannot recognize an accent, and the link is mental more than anything.  I mean, I guess it sort of sounded like my kindergarten teacher, since that’s really the only female voice besides Aunt Petunia that I heard enough to remember the sound of.”  Across the room, a fire unwittingly shot out of Ron’s hand at the mention of Petunia, and he hurried to put it out before it grew large enough that the light caught Harry’s attention.  Hopefully Flint and Snape wouldn’t notice the scorch mark on the chair leg…

“You know, for the sweetest person I have ever met and the closest thing we have to a literal angel, you’re very sarcastic.”

“Yes, but what’s the one fault that’s holding me back from angelic status?” Harry teased, giving her a winning smile.  “Is it that I snore? - Blaise says I snore.”

“Well he does,” the boy defended when Ron and Draco glared at him.

“Do fuck off, his snoring is adorable,” Pansy cooed, and Harry hid behind Hermione before she could reach out to pinch his cheeks again.

“I’m going to go do research in the library,” Hermione rolled her eyes at them all, trying to make sense of what little information she’d been able to glean about the voice in the walls and categorize it in a way that would be conducive and efficient.  Before she was even halfway there, however, she ran into little Colin Creevey, who was looking disoriented and more than a little upset.

“What’s wrong?” Hermione asked kindle, and the other muggleborn looked up at her.

“I… I’m really lost- Percy said I was getting sick and should go take a pepper-up, but I can’t find Madame Pomfrey and it’s cold down here and I don’t really remember which turns I’ve taken or how long I’ve been looking or-”

“Shh, it’s fine Colin,” she soothed.  “I’ll take you, and we should be able to make it to dinner just in time.”  He smiled at her, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes, and she made a mental note to find him once he was feeling better and maybe see if he was feeling homesick and wanted to talk about it.  First year was a little tough for everyone, she knew- mostly homesickness, although for Harry it was actual sickness caused by his ‘home.’

She shook her head- no need to think about such a thing right now.  Harry was safe now, and whatever was going on with the chamber, she was going to do her damndest to make sure he didn’t get dragged into it.

Chapter Text

Lockhart may not have remembered being a newt, but he certainly remembered breaking Harry’s shoulder, so he at least had the absolute bare minimum of sense required to know that he ought to leave Harry alone in class lest he face the wrath of Snape.  That apparently didn’t stop him from being a right idiot in every other way, apparently, as it was mid-November and Harry had just gotten his sling off when a paper went up in the Great Hall announcing the beginning of a dueling club. Harry, eagerly, had gone to Sev about it.

“Do you think Flitwick is doing it?” He asked his head of house, chattering a mile a minute.  Severus’ forehead wrinkled.

“No,” he signed, “I don’t think he is, or he would have told us about it in our last staff meeting- if you would excuse me for a moment, I have to go talk to the headmaster.”  

Harry knew that his guardian wouldn’t be too long, and he was rather curious as to what was going on, so he waited patiently, sitting in the chair in front of Severus’ desk and his feet swinging as Fluffy lay off to the side.  He flicked his wrist, making pretty fairy lights come out of the end of his wand and dance around the office. Professor Snape returned just as they spread out in a fan above the little Slytherin’s head, and he looked pleasantly contented as his big green eyes followed his creation, so he stood by quietly for a moment so Fluffy wouldn’t alert Harry as to his presence just yet.  He wanted to take in the moment, as sentimental as it was.

Eventually, Harry looked up and saw him.  “Oh, hey Sev- how long have you been there?”  Severus couldn’t help a small smile- a year ago, Harry would never have let his guard down long enough for him to come through the floo unnoticed.

“Not long,” he said, and his face darkened again as he thought about his meeting with Dumbledore.  “Apparently, Gilderoy is in charge of the dueling club and wanted it to be a ‘surprise’ for the students, and Albus agreed- however, it will still be a useful experience, as I have made it clear to him that I will also be running the club- it would be a real shame to have to cancel it when it is a useful skill to know.”

“That sounds cool!” Harry enthused.  “Maybe you’ll even get to show Lockhart who’s really the master dueler.”

“Well,” Severus intoned, “I wouldn’t say I’m a master- I certainly couldn’t take your Aunt Minerva in a fight, however much it pains me to admit it, but putting Lockhart in his place will be child’s play.”

“I’m not gonna tell anyone-  well, anyone but Ron and Hermione and Draco- that way it’ll be an awesome surprise,” the child told him solemnly, and Severus ruffled his hair.

“Alright, you little miscreant, it’s time for your evening potions,” he reminded, and Harry made a face.

“Aw, not those,” he sighed, put out.

_____

Thursday was the first official meeting of the dueling club, and of course the foursome were particularly excited as they entered the great hall about an hour after dinner to find that all the house tables had been moved and a platform erected where the teachers’ table normally stood.

“You all look like you know something,” Pansy squinted, and Ron squirmed uncomfortably- he could call fire to his hands in a fraction of a second, but she still terrified him.

“Just wait, Pans- you’ll see what happens,” Harry told her, and because he was the only person whose will she would give into without further argument, that was the end of the conversation.

“Hello!” Lockhart declared flamboyantly, and Blaise rolled his eyes.

“Straight men should not try to pull off that attitude,” he groaned, and Daphne rolled her eyes at him.

“I’m sure some could- let’s not do all straight men the disservice of putting them in the same category as Gilderoy Lockhart,” she said.  “I mean, a lot of them suck, but there’s sucking and then there’s that.”  She pointed to the stage, where Lockhart was taking a series of elaborate bows just for existing, which most students in the hall would really rather he didn’t.   Many went to turn around and leave, but then Severus Snape stepped out of the shadows of the room, and they scurried to find their places again.

“Severus here also has a bit of dueling experience,” Lockhart said, and Harry clenched his fists- he knew that the man had more than a bit- he’d seen him and Remus doing more-or-less friendly duels during the summer to practice (Sirius and Severus seemed to both agree that they ought not to try such a thing just yet, for fear of losing composure and trying to kill each other).  “He’ll be aiding me in this little demonstration.”

The potion master’s slight smirk told everyone watching that he would clearly be running things, but Ron heard a fourth year Gryffindor whispering to his friend.

“I hope they finish each other off,” he said, and the Ravenclaw witch smacked him.

“Don’t be rude- Professor Snape has been a much better teacher the past couple of years, and you definitely earn all your detentions now,” she told him.

“It’s a healthy expression of scientific curiousity, all these explosions,” he argued, and she just rolled her eyes at him.

“There is nothing educational about those particular explosions, and this is coming from someone who tries lots of volatile experiments in her off time,” she finished, exasperated, and the Gryffindor crossed his arms.

“Oh Merlin and Morgana, this is gonna be good,” Pansy snorted as Lockhart and Snape lined up on opposite ends of the stage.  “I hope Snape gets him in the crotch.”

“You’re brutal,” Greg gave her a frightened look.

“You’re just now figuring this out- Merlin, you’re smarter than that, at least.”  The burly student hid his blushing cheeks- he loved all of his friends, but Pansy was so mean sometimes (all the time- it’s just how she was.  She would also kick some arse if anyone but her tried to insult her squad).

“One must always bow to their opponent,” Lockhart said, and Snape rolled his eyes.

“In professional circuits, yes, but if you’re fighting in a life-or-death situation, don’t waste time on… that,” he curled his lip in disdain as Gilderoy responded to his curt nod with a an over-the-top flourish that ended with him dropping his wand and fumbling to catch it before it hit the floor.

“Right, well- I’ll go easy on him, don’t worry kids.  You’ll still have your potions master when I’m done with him.”  Despite his fear of the man, he felt the need to regain some of his lost dignity, but he really shouldn’t have dared, seeing the look on Snape’s face.

They both pulled into position, and Severus, reading the man, knew that an aggressive strategy would work in this scenario as he immediately fired off an expelliarmus.   The wand went flying out of Lockhart’s hand as he fell backwards, and he popped up with a forced smile on his face.

“I thought I ought to let him do it- show you how it was done,” he tried to cover up his failure, and Severus glowered fiercely at him.

“Maybe I’ll use your dead body to show the students how an autopsy is done,” he snarled under his breath, and fluorescently white teeth chattered just a little as the other man saw his face.  Harry, who had been able to read his lips as he watched the happenings with eager eyes, turned to whisper what was said, and Ron’s blue eyes lit up even more in anticipation, although things never had a chance to escalate any further.

“Let’s pair you all up to try on your own,” Severus exercised immense self-restraint, remembering what Black had said about not doing something he’d regret (and Merlin, he was calling the mutt’s advice to mind- what had the world come to?!)

“Would anyone like to do a demonstration?”  Lockhart asked. “How about H-”

“Hermione and Millicent,” Severus cut him off, knowing how uncomfortable Harry was being the centre of attention and shooting the blonde ponce a death glare.

“Good thing this isn’t a physical match, or you’d have me beat- look at those toned muscles,” Hermione whispered to her friend, using the opportunity to try to boost her low self-confidence.

“I could squash you like a bug,” Millie agreed with a little chuckle as she gave Mia a friendly pat on the arm before they headed to opposite ends of the stage.

“Disarm only, please,” the potions professor told them, as Lockhart was too busy admiring his own reflection in the window.  Then he demonstrated the wand movements for the spell again, figuring correctly that Lockhart hadn’t gotten to that crucial part of the syllabus yet.

“Expelliarmus- got it,” they both nodded resolutely and gave neat half-bows before dropping into a fighting stance.  They didn’t get the chance to actually duel, however, as Padma, whose magic had been acting up since her twin was petrified, tried practicing the wand movements as everyone else in the audience was doing when she hit a hiccup- her hand seized slightly as a plethora of snakes came pouring out of her wand, and students screamed and scrambled back.  There were a number of cobras, bush vipers, and other dangerous snakes and nobody wanted to get bitten, not knowing if Madame Pomfrey would even have such exotic anti-venom in stock.

“Hey!”  Harry called, as the previously defensive and agitated serpents responded to the call of the speaker, and all of the approximately 20+ creatures came slithering placidly to rest at his feet as he called them over.

Whispers that he couldn’t hear broke out, but he most definitely felt the atmosphere of the room change as he looked up and realized everyone was staring at him.

“Oh right,” he whispered to himself.  “Parselmouths are rare.”

“That’s enough,” Severus called above the clamour.  “Leave Harry alone- he did just save you all.”  In his anger at some of the whispers he’d heard (people immediately jumped to ‘dark wizard’ as soon as they heard the parseltongue come out of the poor child’s mouth), he’d forgotten to call Harry “Mr. Potter” like he made an effort to do in class or academic environments.  “I’m coming over,” he signed to his ward, who placated the snakes, growing agitated at all the animosity in the room which seemed to be directed at this friendly little speaker.

“I’m going to send them all back to where they came from,” he told Harry, as the snakes eyed him warily but stood down on Harry’s orders.  “Except that one,” the man motioned to the rainbow-colored Spiny African bush viper, who was perched on top of Harry’s mess of curls and only settled farther in as the man raised his wand.  “I have a feeling she’d be unwilling to leave.”

He was right, of course, as the snake was currently hissing “my tiny human!” into Harry’s mind.  Harry soothed the beautiful little creature, promising her she could stay as he pulled her off his head and let her curl around on his arm.

“Well- what are you staring at?  Get out!” Severus ordered the rest of the student body (and Lockhart) and they all scrambled away as Harry clung protectively to his new friend.  The only ones who stayed were the other second-year Slytherins and Neville Longbottom, who looked extremely nervous of Harry’s snake but still walked slowly up to him, close enough that his friend could read his lips.

“I don’t think you’re the heir, Harry, and, and… I’ll fight anyone who says so,” he decided, squaring his shoulders.

“Oh, thanks Nev, but you don’t have to- I don’t want you to get hurt or in trouble,” Harry told him.  “I’d hug you, but I can tell you’re really scared of Fimi- that’s her name, by the way- she told me. It’s a river in Congo, where she’s from.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” Neville said, backing away.  “Anyway, love you! Gonna just…” he ran away from the brilliantly-coloured snake as quickly as he possibly could.  Now Harry had two pets that terrified him…

“Come on, let’s head back to the dormitories,” Severus gathered up all his students.  “I promise it will be just fine, Harry.”

Chapter Text

Severus made a point of snarling and assigning detentions to anyone he heard bad-mouthing his child over the next few weeks, and it only made him more frustrated when this didn’t stop the whispers about Harry and his ‘dark powers’ altogether.  

For Harry’s part, while he didn’t exactly like the whispers (or being the centre of attention in any way) he had the feeling it bothered his guardian far more than it bothered him- he had his friends, after all, and his pets, including Fimi, who was very supportive.

“Speaking is an ancient and sacred magic,” she told him.  “It is revered by Sultans and Maharajas and Shahs- it is their own problem that they do not understand the power you possess, and you need not concern yourself with their perfidy.”

She really was the most beautiful snake he’d ever seen, and she liked to remind him regularly that her bright rainbow coloring was a rarity even amongst her species- she was no mere gradient of blue and green, after all.  Pansy liked her because she looked like ‘a more aesthetic version of the pride flag’ and Draco loved to stroke her spiny scales- he loved the way their uneven texture felt under his fingers.

Fimi, for her part, spent most of her time curled around Harry, but whenever she got too cold she would go and lay on Ron for a while.

“Fire friend is nice,” she told Harry.   “Warm and comfortable.”  Harry had to admit he agreed- when he was cold and Ron wrapped a protective arm around him, the feeling of safety and comfort he felt both physically and emotionally helped push his troubles into the background.

If only they would stay there- he of course didn’t mind the whispers and such circulating around him as much as his friends and his guardians- for one, he couldn’t hear them, and the odd whisper that he lipread out of the corner of his eye was nothing worse than the things people in Privet Drive used to say to him.  Fred and George made light of the situation, saying things like “seriously dark wizard, coming through,” which made Harry laugh- he was already the source of unwanted attention anyway, so at least the twins were helping him make the best of it.

He was making his way back to the dungeons one day in early December, Fluffy trailing behind him and Fimi coiled comfortably around his neck as he and his friends discussed the Transfiguration quiz they’d just taken, when a hex came flying at them from around the corner, cutting him along the cheek.  Ron immediately shot a fireball out of his hand in the direction the attack had come from, but the assailant had already fled.

“C’mon,” he signed, as Fluffy grew in size.  “Let’s get you back to the dorms before anything else happens.”

Severus was apoplectic, shaking with rage as he took in the cut on Harry’s cheek, dripping blood onto his shoulder.

“Everyone to the dormitories- we’re on lockdown until further notice,” he told the students tightly, calling Flint to carry out the orders while he took Harry by the hand and led him into the office.

“You don’t have to make such a big deal about it,” Harry said as the potions master took a clean cloth and gently dabbed at the blood on his face.  “I’ve seen worse.”

“I know you have, but that’s no excuse for whoever did this,” he motioned to the cut to which he was currently applying a healing potion, “to go unpunished- it’s lucky they only nicked you, or this could have been serious.  Cutting hexes should not be taken lightly, and I want whoever did it expelled.” Harry knew there was no changing Sev’s mind when he got all protective like this, so he just shrugged and went back to hissing placatingly at Fimi, who was still on high alert.  

“All better,” Snape sighed as he stepped back to survey his handiwork- the wound was healed as if it had never been there, but the problem still remained- someone was out to get Harry, when all he’d done was keep them from getting attacked by frightened snakes.  “Come on- I’ll walk you back to your dorm, and then I have to go floo your dogfathers; I have a feeling it will take three of us to make any headway with Dumbledore.” If it came to that, he knew that having Sirius pull rank as the Lord of the Ancient and Noble House of Black (who had been quite seriously wronged by the ministry and thus had a fair amount of leverage with them) to let them investigate and castigate undisturbed.  

“Call me if you need anything,” he reminded Harry as they reached the second-year boys dorm, and Fluffy took up guard position at the door as Harry nodded, hugged him, and slipped inside.  Ron stepped up to him immediately, giving the place where the cut had been a critical look before nodding, satisfied.

“Snape really knows what he’s doing,” he commented as he nervously flicked some sparks along the fingers of the hand facing away from Harry.  “I just hope he can find the guy.”

“He says he wants to expel whoever it is,” Harry informed them, and Ron’s blue eyes glowed like the centre of a flame.

“Good,” he grunted, and Draco nodded in agreement from where he was squishing some silly putty between his fingers.

“Yeah- they shouldn’t be able to attack you and get away with it when all you did was keep them from getting bitten by a snake.”

“I don’t like this- at all,” Theo remarked.  “First we have whoever’s behind the chamber thing, and now we have people attacking you - we’re fighting a two-front war, and we all know how that went.”

“How’d that go?” Greg asked, as Blaise reminded Theo that not all of them read muggle history books.

“Bad,” Harry summarized succinctly.  “It didn’t work very well for the Germans- Hermione says it was the biggest strategic blunder since Waterloo.”

“Water-what?” Vincent scratched his head.

“Napoleon messed up, essentially,” Ron explained.  “But that’s not the point right now- we have to keep this situation from going south.”

“But how?” Theo stroked his chin.  “Harry- you haven’t heard the voice again, have you?”

“Haven’t heard any voices, actually,” the Iranian boy snarked as Draco put a pillow over his face and screamed into it.  “But if you’re asking about the snake in the walls- no, there’s been no contact. But then again, I was really far away from where Parvati was petrified, so it could be that I’m just not in the right places.”

“There’s a whole castle, and we don’t even know what sort of pattern this thing follows, if any- there’s not a right place so much as it’s a game of chance,” Ron groaned, the cogs in his head turning- he didn’t like chance; he liked chess.   Strategic, predictable, controllable chess.  “And do we even want Harry to he- encounter,” he corrected quickly, as Harry reluctantly bit back whatever pun he’d been no doubt ready to spit out, “the voice again- it always precedes something bad happening, it seems like, and the adults are sure to figure it out eventually, right?”

“I mean, most of them are really smart, but Harry’s the only one who speaks Parseltongue,” Theo pointed out, and Ron glared.

“Only helpful comments, please,” he ordered, and Theo shrugged but backed off.

“It’s been almost a month since the last attack,” Blaise muttered as he paced the room.  “And the first two were very close together- the end of October and the beginning of November.  It’s been a month since then, which could either mean that things are slowing down or we’re sitting on a bomb.”  Draco translated their friend’s thoughts into BSL for Harry, who stroked his chin.

“Maybe there’s no pattern at all,” he offered.  “I mean, it sounded like the voice didn’t want to be doing what it was doing, so it’s whoever’s controlling the snake that is responsible for all this, and that’s who we should be tracking.”

“But how could we possibly have any way of knowing who that is,” Draco groaned.

“Could it be the same person who attacked Harry?” Greg asked, and Ron sighed.

“That’s an interesting thought, but it seems unlikely- I mean, whoever’s behind the chamber would want to keep a low profile, and attacking Harry seems like a petty, vengeful thing to do.  It would only risk blowing their cover, right?”

“Unless they know that Harry can hear their snake and they were trying to get him out of the way so that he wouldn’t find anything out,” Theo mused.

“Then why use such an inefficient spell?”  Harry had been following Draco’s hands as he transcribed the conversation to save his friend the trouble of having to track everyone’s lips.  “I mean, a cutting curse is messy, for one, and it only works if it hits something vital- if it really was more than a petty revenge attack, they would have used something with a higher likelihood of seriously injuring or killing me.”  He’d spent long enough having people out for his blood that it wasn’t really a problem for him to detach and think logically about it, although this disconcerted his friends- he clearly wasn’t as scared as he should be, as they would be, and it made them sad that he was so used to this.

“I guess that is a good point,” Blaise conceded, “but it only complicates things further- we’ve either got at least two different enemies, or one enemy who’s trying to throw a wrench in the works, or maybe one enemy that’s just not very logical- but if they were that dumb, then why haven’t they been caught by now?  And it’s supposed to be the heir of Slytherin causing all this trouble- I mean, we’re definitely not all evil monsters, but we’re not stupid either.  If this attacker really is associated with Slytherin, then he would be unlikely to be dumb enough to attack Harry in the corridors.  Ugh, what are we missing?”

“The type of creature would be nice,” Ron grumbled.  “I mean, it’s gotta be rare, because even Hermione hasn’t been able to find anything that fits with what we know in the library.”

“What if it’s not the heir of Slytherin at all?” Harry shot up suddenly from where he’d been reclining with his head against Draco’s stomach, and the blonde grunted at the loss of contact.  “I mean, the thing just said ‘enemies of the heir’ and the whole ‘chamber’ bit was supposed to be the chamber of secrets thing, which was supposedly something Slytherin did.  But Parvati is a pure-blood, and the whole Slytherin stereotype is anti-muggleborn, right? We’re assuming that Parseltongue is a Slytherin-only thing, but just because someone is related to Slytherin doesn’t mean they’re in Slytherin.  I mean, two of the attackers from last year were non-Slytherins, and something’s up here.  We also have a snake that’s reluctant to hurt students, so the fact that she’s fighting with the heir could mean that things don’t work according to plan for them either.  What if we’re not looking for a Slytherin at all?”

“That- that’s genius, Harry!  We have to tell Hermione- maybe she’ll have an idea for scoping out the other houses,” Ron exclaimed.

___

“Look at that,” Tracey pointed to a note that appeared on Hermione’s bed, and she picked it up.

“Hmm,” she read it, and her eyes widened- it was from Harry, explaining everything that had just happened.

“So we could be looking for a Hufflepuff, then,” Millie groaned- things were complicated enough already.

“Let’s be real- it’s probably a Gryffindor out there doing stupid shit,” Pansy remarked, and Hermione looked at her.

“So then we ought to figure out a way to get into the Gryffindor common room,” the muggleborn muttered, and suddenly her face lit up.

“I’ve got it!”  An idea dawned on her face, and she rushed out the door and to the potion master’s office.

“Ms. Granger,” he looked up as she burst in, a headache forming as he tried to figure out who might have hurt Harry (Remus and Sirius were out combing the halls, but he didn’t want to leave his house when there was someone out there who would clearly stop at nothing to hurt his child).  “You’re all supposed to be in your dormitories.

“Never mind that,” she told him, and Severus raised an eyebrow at her- she was clearly under the impression that she was in charge of the situation, and maybe she was (rather probable, actually) but he needed to know why.

“I need to make a Polyjuice potion,” she told him, as she laid out her idea.

“You realize that we would both be breaking a number of school rules by doing this?” He began, and held up a hand before Hermione could break into another tirade.  “So, what we’re going to do is this- you’ve been snooping around, as you do, and you happen to find this piece of paper with my signature on it.”  He held out a delivery form for a bookstore, and Hermione could see that he’d signed for a number of novels he’d no doubt ordered Harry for Christmas.  

“You duplicate it, because you have no respect for the rules.  You copy it to a form requesting a copy of Moste Potente Potions from the restricted section of the library.  You get the book. Maybe a few ingredients go missing from my stores- it’s a common problem, with all these little reprobates running around, so I don’t worry overmuch.  You brew the potion in a safe location, and then you and two of your roommates happen to incapacitate a few Gryffindors for an hour or so- without causing them any real harm, of course, and snoop a bit in the common room.  If you get caught, I had nothing to do with it.” He looked at her significantly, and she nodded.

“Good,” he agreed.  “And most importantly: you do not tell any of the boys what you are doing, because you know that your head of house would make your life very unpleasant if Harry got wrapped up in this dangerous business- and besides the risks, he would feel obligated to help but bad about going behind my back, of course, and that is not a situation you would want to put him in.  Are we clear?”

“Yes sir,” she nodded.  “I suppose I’ll just go back to my dorm now, since I started to leave but then realized that disobeying a professor’s direct orders to go see that professor would be a bad idea, so I turned around and went back in.”

“Smart girl,” Severus nodded at her approvingly.  “So smart, in fact, that I never even realized you were… up to something.”

Chapter Text

The girls decided to wait until after winter hols to brew the polyjuice, since there wouldn’t be enough time beforehand for the entire month-long brewing process.  But they were plenty busy enough regardless, with all the Christmas shopping they had to do in addition to worrying about whoever was out to get Harry. Severus insisted that he go everywhere with both Fluffy and one of the professors that he trusted while they looked for whoever had cast the cutting hex.  This also had the effect of quelling any of the whispers around him, since he was always accompanied by an adult who would immediately assign detention to anyone who was mean to him.  

Even in Lockhart’s class, whichever of the heads of houses was on a free period at the moment would sit in the back of the class.  Harry made it clear that they didn’t have to give up their free time for him, but Severus would hear none of it, so he always had one of the heads of houses sitting next to him and his friends in the back of the class, which helped soothe the potions master’s anxiety that Harry would be attacked again, as well as keeping Lockhart from bothering Harry during class, which the preeteen had to admit he appreciated.

Soon it was the last day of term, and they were all greeted with an unpleasant surprise when they arrived at dinner, although luckily not a dangerous one (unless gaudy Christmas decorations count as dangerous).  Lockhart had decided to throw a surprise Yuletide dinner dance, complete with awful, oversized snowflakes charmed to light up, far too many animated nutcracker statues, and an abundance of mistletoe, so much that Harry sneezed when they walked in.

“Oh no,” Draco groaned, upon finding his senses assaulted by the tacky decor.  “He just doesn’t stop!” Lockhart, in similar robes of red and green with a Father Christmas hat and a jaunty tinsel bowtie, was smiling blindingly down at them from next to Dumbledore, whose eyes were twinkling as he wore his standard Christmas flowered bonnet.

“Welcome, students, welcome!” The headmaster greeted.   “Gilderoy felt bad that those of you going home weren’t going to enjoy Christmas at the castle, so we’ve decided to have an early celebration to send you off, complete with music and dancing!”  There was a dwarf-manned orchestra in one corner, and the creatures looked rather grumpy about the job they’d been assigned to do, making Harry glad he wouldn’t be able to hear whatever screeching melodies they would no doubt torture out of those poor instruments.

“You don’t have to look so happy about it,” Ron grumbled, picking up on Harry’s train of thought.

“Hey,” Harry giggled.  “There are very few benefits to being deaf, but this is one of them.”  The orchestra began to throttle their instruments as the students all sat down at the house tables, which had been shoved to the side to make room for a dance floor in the centre.  Almost nobody was using it except Luna, who pulled Ginny, laughing with fond exasperation, to do a funny little jig that did not match whatever poor approximation of rhythm the dwarves were playing.

“Merlin, she’s weird,” Daphne shook her head, but she was smiling at the endearing little Ravenclaw and her personal Weasley.

“I think you’re a little behind the beat!” Harry called out to them, and Ginny just gave him an unimpressed look.

“Will you ever stop making those damn deaf jokes?” Hermione signed to him, and Harry pretended to think about it.

“Not until the day I hear you tell me to,” he said, which was an awfully punny way to say ‘never.’  Draco groaned and pretended to bash his head against the table while Fimi eyed the honey-glazed ham with interest.

“No, you cannot put that whole thing in your mouth,” Harry scolded her.   “You’re not a boa constrictor.”   He cut her a more manageable piece while she pouted, huffily ranting that ‘those boringly-coloured behemoths’ had nothing on her.  Some Hufflepuffs at the next table eyed him warily as he conversed with his snake, but Cedric Diggory simply got up and marched over to the Slytherin table.

“Hey, that’s a pretty cool skill,” he said, and Harry felt his heart pound harder as the older boy’s warm honey eyes met his own.  “What are you two talking about, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Oh, er, I was just telling her she couldn’t eat the whole ham,” Harry muttered, and Draco gave Cedric a distrustful look.

“Aren’t you supposed to be sitting at your own table?” he challenged- his presence was clearly making Harry nervous, so he ought to leave.

“It’s all right Draco,” Harry put a hand on his own before he could get too worked up, and the blonde felt his cheeks heat up as he clamped his mouth shut.

“It’s okay,” Cedric smiled again, and he had straight white teeth that put Lockhart’s to shame in that they were clearly naturally perfect.  “I understand that there have been a bunch of people being mean to you, so it’s really good of him to be suspicious.”

“I’ll say,” Draco crossed his arms over his chest, gathering his confidence again.  “That Finch-Fletchley kid really needs to pull the stick out of his arse.” This time it was Harry’s turn to blush as he elbowed Draco under the table, but Cedric only laughed.

“Yeah, I know,” he agreed.  “Quite a lot of people do, actually.  Anyway, I’d like to personally apologise on behalf of my house.  I mean, I don’t know how they can think that a sweet little thing like you could possibly be behind the chamber attacks.”

“I’m not that little,” Harry protested, crossing his arms and pouting adorably.  

“Case in point.”  Cedric laughed, ruffled his hair, and then got up to go back to his own table, saying that he wouldn’t take up anymore of their time.

“Hmmm, I like that yellow human, I think,” Fimi said, watching him walk away.

“Yeah,” Harry agreed, his face feeling rather hot, for some reason.   “He’s really something.”

There were a number of party favours for their tastelessly ostentatious ‘ball,’ but they were all Lockhart merchandise, and the elves found rather a lot of Lockhart books and Lockhart talking action figures in the garbage that night when they were cleaning up.

_____

Harry was in his bed later that night buried under a pile of blankets, warm and comfortable and blessedly nightmare free, when he felt a weight dip on one side.  He was awake immediately, bleary green eyes taking in the blurred sight of a flash of white-blond hair and silver silk pyjamas crawling in next to him.

“Dray?” he said out loud, not wanting to take his hands out of their quilt cocoon but knowing that the silencing charms would keep him from waking anybody else.  “What are you doin’ here?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” he signed, and Harry could just make out an expression of worry on his face, blurred though it was.  “I had a nightmare that the cutting curse bloke got you again, only this time he didn’t miss.”

“Oh,” Harry nodded slowly, understanding why his friend would need to be close to him after something like that.  “Well I’m right here, and you can stay if you want.”

“Thanks,” Draco signed, already burrowing under the blankets with his nose buried in Harry’s shoulder, his bum sticking out at an angle so he could lower himself enough to do so, since Harry was so much shorter.  He pushed his long, pale toes into Harry’s calves as the darker boy’s hair tickled his forehead, and soon Harry’s deep, even breathing had lured him into a comfortable slumber, their hearts beating in sync.

___

“I can’t ride the train?”  Harry’s eyes were sad, his face so crestfallen that Severus felt his traitorous heart clench.

“I’m sorry Harry, it’s just too dangerous- I’m worried someone will try to attack you,” he sighed, running his fingers gently through his child’s curls, tangled from one last trek through the windblown grounds before they left for the break.

“Oh, okay,” the child sighed, although he still looked deeply disappointed.  “I understand.” The professor could see that although he wasn’t complaining, the picture of his friends laughing and talking on the express without him was playing vividly in his mind, and he bit the inside of his cheek and sighed.

“Well maybe…” he began, and Harry perked up immediately.  “It’s not standard procedure, but if you wouldn’t mind having me ride in the compartment with you, I suppose it would be safe enough.”

“Yeah, that’ll be awesome!” the little boy exclaimed, and he didn’t look like he found having his guardian ride along a hardship at all.  He reached out impulsively and wrapped his scrawny brown arms around Severus’ torso in a spontaneous hug, and the man could feel Harry’s smile against his stomach.  “You can play exploding snap with us!”

“Oh, goodie,” Severus grumbled, and although Harry couldn’t see his lips, he laughed at the rumbling he felt in his torso, figuring correctly that he had said something sarcastic.

____

“Professor, stop!” Pansy ordered him for the third time as Severus took out his kerchief to wipe chocolate off of Harry’s face, well aware that he couldn’t take house points on the train.  “Having cauldron cake smeared on your upper lip is part of the fun of riding the express- you’re ruining it for him!”

“It’s fine Pans,” Harry told her, his words garbled around the handkerchief.  They could all see plain as day that he was tickled pink at being fussed over by a parent, and the girl rolled her eyes and let it go, trying not to show how warm and fuzzy inside it made her feel when her little friend was happy.

When they landed on the platform, Sirius and Remus were waiting to wrap Harry up in a giant hug.

“Oh, it’s so good to see you cub,” Sirius sighed in relief as Harry watched his lips from his position in Remus’ strong arms.  “You’ve had kind of a tough semester, huh?”

“It wasn’t so bad,” Harry reassured, sighing pleasantly as Moony threw a cloak over him to keep him warm as they all walked towards the floo.  This only made Sirius think angrily that of course Harry wouldn’t be troubled by the events of the year when they were so mild compared to what he’d gone through growing up.

Deep breath in, he told himself, not wanting to get worked up into a temper in front of his godson.  He leaned in and breathed the scent of Harry’s curls, which smelled like green apple shampoo and just a hint of the pervasive scent of broom polish that clung to him at all times.  He pressed a kiss to the top of his head, already feeling calmer. Harry’s very presence was soothing, like one of Lily’s hugs after a long hard day.

Kreacher had been cooking up a storm for Harry’s return- good, fattening things that would help him gain wait, as the elf was (understandably) perpetually worried about his little master.  He signed a quick hello to Harry before enveloping him in a hug and then stirring a pudding so it wouldn’t burn, and Harry tried to help by washing some of the dirty dishes in the sink, but Kreacher wouldn’t hear of it.

“You’s relax, little master,” the subtitles above his head spelled out as he conjured a plump chair and pushed Harry down into it, allowing him to watch him cook and enjoy the smells of the kitchen without exerting himself.  Harry found himself treated to little tastes of everything as the house elf continued the dinner preparations, something nobody else was allowed. But then, everyone knew that Harry was Kreacher’s favourite.

“It’s nice, isn’t it?” Remus sighed, leaning against Sirius chest.  “We’re our own little family, no matter how strange it is that Severus Snape is in it.”

“I know, right?” Sirius laughed as he watched Severus hovering nervously near Harry, as if afraid he would disappear if he let him out of his sight.  “It sounds like something Trelawney would have predicted.”

Chapter Text

    It was the day after Christmas, and Harry was all wrapped up in his new Weasley jumper, looking positively adorable as he sat at the kitchen table next to Draco, tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth in concentration as he copied the Farsi alphabet that Sirius had written out on a conjured chalkboard.  As he worked, he tried to remember the sounds of it from the phrases his father used to speak to him, back when he could hear. Hermione, visiting with her parents for the holidays, was focusing intently as well, her mouth sounding the letters out, and Harry watched out of the corner of his eye, trying to see if he could garner any clues from reading her lips.  But it wasn’t an exact science, and he couldn’t pick up the subtle tonal differences in a language he hadn’t known beforehand, so he went back to working off of what little he can remember and resigning himself to the fact that Faarsi would just have to be a language he would only be able to read, write, and understand- he could read the lips of a native speaker and match it to the meaning, but it was unlikely he’d be able to pronounce too much without looking like a fool.

    Ron, in a matching Weasley sweater on his other side, squeezed his hand comfortingly, picking up on his disappointed train of thought.  Mindlessly, Harry switched his quill into his left hand so he could hold his best friend’s with his right, and everyone turned to look at him.

    “You’re ambidextrous, Harry?” Hermione asked, surprised, and Harry shrugged.

    “Yeah,” he said.  “I mean, I was originally left-handed, but the Dursleys were rather old fashioned- they thought maybe it had something to do with my magic, since the church used to say all that stuff about it being ‘the devil’s hand’ or whatever.”  They’d actually broken his hand to keep him from using it so he had to learn to work and write with the right one, but of course they were furious when that only slowed him down in doing his chores- he’d learned a long time ago he could never win with the Dursleys.

    “That’s just fucking awful,” Sirius ground out, and Harry was glad that he at least didn’t know the part where they’d broken his hand.

    “I thought we’d established that the Dursleys, by nature, are fucking awful,” Severus snipped, lashing out in his anger at one more thing they’d taken from Harry- Lily had been left-handed, too, and they couldn’t even let him have that little bit of his mother.

    “Hey, don’t blame the table for that,” Harry teased, trying to ease the tension, and Severus reluctantly stopped glaring daggers at the polished cherry-wood.  “Hey Siri, can you teach us a sentence?”

    “Of course I can, pup,” Padfoot said, glad to distract his thoughts from how the Dursleys might have forced him to use his right hand.   Well, at least he’s ambidextrous.   He tried to force himself to think optimistically like his godson as he spelled out the sentence My name is Hami on the board, but it didn’t sit right- it almost seemed wrong to try to find a bright side in what those monsters had done to his sweet Prongslet.

    Harry continued writing with his left hand and holding Ron’s with his right as he spelled the sentence out and the memory of the meaning sprang to his mind, causing him to smile.  He curled closer into Ron’s warmth as his friend gently carded a hand through his curls, and Hermione nudged his calves with her fuzzy-socked feet from her seat across from him.

Draco, tentatively, reached out with his thumb to wipe an ink stain off of Harry’s- Hami’s, he reminded himself, he’s Hami when we’re speaking Farsi- cheek, and he was rewarded with a brilliant smile and a laugh.  Draco wasn’t normally good with affection, but it felt natural with Harry, and it was hard enough sharing him with their friends, but Hami loved cuddles, so he supposed he could make himself accept that he wasn’t the only one who got to give light touches on the shoulder or the nose or squeezes of the hand or any of the other numerous gestures of physical affection the other boy so adored.

“Mate, you’re dripping ink,” Ron told him, and Draco blushed as he realized that his pen had been hovering in the same place on the parchment for several minutes, creating a splotch.

“Off creating new universes in your head again?” Harry teased, referring to Draco’s tendency to daydream, like many kids on the autism spectrum.  Draco gave him a half-smile.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” He quipped.  “Maybe I’ll write a novel someday, the greatest since Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.”

“Can you even focus long enough to write a novel? - I mean, we’re twelve!  With the exception of Hermione, most of us barely have the attention span to finish our homework,” Ron made a face.

“That’s why I said someday, Ronald, and not today,” the blonde responded haughtily, adopting Hermione’s tendency to use Ron’s full name whenever he said something she thought was a little bit dense.

Remus watched the four laugh together with a wistful expression on his face- they were just like the Marauders as children, although they caused a little less (intentional) trouble and he could already tell none of them would ever betray the others.

“I know Rems,” Sirius whispered, reaching out and grabbing his hand as he saw the memories in his eyes.  “We’ll just have to make sure these guys all stay safe and alive- we have to.”

“We will,” Remus agreed with conviction.  “Whatever it takes.”

_____

“Alright, time for bed, kiddos,” Remus announced as they finished watching Lion King for the third time (and honestly, bless Kreacher for figuring out how to make muggle technology work in the house).

Reluctantly, they all pulled out of their cuddle pile, all except for Harry, who was already asleep, clutching Charcoal’s fur as she curled into his fluttering chest.  Severus smiled slightly, and Remus and Sirius didn’t dare say a word about it as he picked him up- they knew that commenting on his softness only got them hexed, and besides, according to the unspoken rotation they had, it was the potion master’s turn to carry Harry to bed.  Ron followed silently, and his head of house looked at him.

“We don’t have a full house at the moment- you know you can sleep in your own guest room,” he told the boy.

“I know,” Ron said quietly, “but I… well, we usually share a dorm room, and I don’t like not being able to see if he’s had a nightmare and worrying that there’ll be nobody to wake him up,” he admitted.  He knew, of course, that the adults would wake him up if they heard him scream (since he was already asleep and couldn’t put up the silencing charms as a result), but he liked being in the same room with him, just to be sure.  He was normally a heavy sleeper, but he’d trained himself to listen for the sound of Harry’s thrashing around in the next bed, even if he charmed the curtains to drown out his screams.

“Alright,” Severus said no more, knowing how protective the young Weasley was of his child and not-so-secretly appreciating it- it was about time Harry had all the love in his life he could get.  He placed the sleeping preteen softly in the bed, covering him with blankets, and Ron also crawled under, curling around his best friend and ordering his fire to heat his limbs to what he knew from experimentation was Harry’s favourite Weasley-Space Heater temperature.

Fluffy, who had padded up behind them, used the magic of the vest to shrink until he could comfortably fit himself and all three of his heads onto the end of the bed, one paw draped protectively over Harry’s leg.  Severus pushed Harry’s curls off of his forehead and leaned down to press a soft, parental kiss to his scar. Seeing Ron watching, he looked at him sternly.

“Not a word, Weasley,” he ordered, and Ron just smiled.

“S’okay,” he said sleepily.  “Everyone already knows you’re a big softie, so I don’t need to tell ‘em.”

“Merlin curse the day you landed in my house,” Snape grunted, but there was no venom in his voice, and whatever fake ire he’d managed to work up vanished from his face the moment Harry let out a soft snore, drooling lightly on the pillow.

“He’s twelve- he has no right to be this cute,” the man grumbled to himself as he left, turning on the golden snitch nightlight and shutting the door.

_____

“Just three blokes at a muggle craft store on a Saturday, making it our mission to fill the house with left-handed scissors,” Sirius said cheerily as they tossed a rainbow’s worth of different colors in the basket- all sorts, from regular scissors with plain black handles to pinking shears to colorful craft scissors that cut in special, pretty patterns.

“Well, I trust Nymphadora to watch the children more than I do to let you wander about alone in the muggle world- Merlin knows you cause enough trouble in our own,” the potions master grumbled, and Remus bit back a chuckle.

“I can control my boyfriend, you know,” he remarked with a smirk.

“Yes, but the problem is you often don’t want to,” Severus bit back.  “I don’t know what it is about the mutt, but Lily thought he was funny too.”

“Speaking of Lily- you still into redheads?” Sirius dared to ask, pointing to a cute ginger over by the counter.

“What Lily and I had- it was a friendship, an important one,” Severus began, taking in a deep breath and not entirely sure why he was telling the two men these truths he’d figured out about himself.  “But I was never truly in love with her- I loved her, yes, but not like that- not romantically.  I only thought that I did because she was a girl, and I was a boy, and she was the only one who cared for me and I didn’t know how to judge those feelings.”

“Oh, so are you…” Padfoot motioned to himself and Remus, “into blokes, then?” He added, as if the exaggerated gesture wasn’t enough for him to get the point.

“I’m not into anyone,” Severus sighed as he saw some ribbon he thought Harry would like and threw it in the cart- it was impossible to have a mature conversation with Sirius- Remus, maybe, but not Sirius.  “Men, women- I don’t care, really. I’m perfectly happy not being romantically attached, and I don’t have any need to reduce myself to a state of being so for the sake of the animalistic desire you two horndogs display so frequently.”

“Severus Snape,” the corners of Moony’s mouth were twitching almost uncontrollably.  “Did you just call us horndogs?”

“Is that not what you are?”  A dark eyebrow quirked upwards on its pale forehead.

“Fair point, but where…”

“Pansy,” the professor groaned.  “She really has the most unique expressions- I hate to use them, but sometimes there’s really nothing else that quite captures the essence of a situation.”

“So then,” Sirius circled back around.  “We’ve established that you’re essentially a muggle priest in terms of sexual needs, although a lot less holy in every other way, and that the only person in the world you care about in any other significant way is our godson- anything else?”

“I suppose I don’t dislike his friends,” Severus admitted, put-upon.  “And I no longer feel the daily inclination to beat you over the head with your own wand- it’s down to every other day, by this point- I suppose my tolerance levels have increased.”

“Ha-ha,” Sirius rolled his eyes as they headed to the checkout line.  “I suppose we ‘tolerate’ you too then, you great toerag.”

______

“Uh, guys?” Harry asked later, as he saw the small mountain of left-handed household utensils laid out on the counter.  “Is there a reason…”

“Shhh, cub, just go with it,” Remus snickered as he ruffled Harry’s hair.  “Padfoot and Severus are trying to outdo each other for your affections, because you’re more of an adult than both of them combined.”

“Alright then…” Harry trailed off, but there was a huge smile on his face and a warm, fuzzy feeling from his head to his slippered toes.

Chapter Text

Severus continued trying to find out who hexed Harry throughout the break, but it was difficult when there was an entire student body who were suspect- a cutting curse wasn’t particularly advanced, so really, anyone above third year or even an advanced second year could have been responsible.  He would have interrogated the entire student body, one by one, under veritaserum if he could have, but Dumbledore had already shot the idea down, despite the fact that he had pushed repeatedly.  So he continued to have Harry escorted everywhere, and he hoped that the polyjuice potion the girls were brewing would help them find the culprit even if it didn’t find who was behind the chamber incident (a cutting curse in the middle of the hallway did seem a Gryffindor way of attacking someone, after all…)

He’d taken Harry to quidditch practice one Friday afternoon (quidditch especially made him nervous- Harry was a good flyer, certainly, but if someone were to hex him in the air, it could do a lot more damage).  He’d begun putting wards all around the pitch, and Flint didn’t like that he wouldn’t let them up in the air until he’d spent an hour assembling them before each practice, but he didn’t really give a bloody fuck what Flint wanted as long as Harry was safe, now did he?  When they were coming back, the second-year happy as could be, cheeks flushed with the exercise, hair mussed from the wind, and nose and hands covered with dirt from where he’d been sitting on the ground meticulously polishing his broom afterwards (Harry took good care of everything he owned, of course, but his broom was his pride and joy- one of the first gifts Severus had given him, and any professional quidditch coach would have been impressed by how nicely the child kept it- better than most of their career athletes, even), and his dog trotting behind him.

“Did you see that dive, Sev?” He signed excitedly as they trotted along back to the dorms.

“Yes, I did see it,” the potions master responded, quirked an eyebrow.  “Nearly gave me a heart attack, in fact.”

“You worry too much,” Harry laughed playfully at him as he continued recounting the practice.

Is it really any wonder? The older Slytherin thought to himself as he watched the tiny little twelve-year-old trot along.   Enough people have been out to get you, and you’re not exactly the healthiest in the first place…

“You fly well, of course, but it’s still nerve-wracking for a parent to watch,” he said instead, and Harry beamed up at him when he said the word ‘parent.’

“I promise I wouldn’t do anything I couldn’t handle,” Harry told him sincerely- and how adorably naive of him that he thought that would be enough to stop Severus from worrying- “But seriously, did you see that catch Draco made, when they put him in?  He was brilliant!” The movement of excited hands stopped suddenly when they reached the prone body of Justin Finch-Fletchley, and the odd, stiff gray mist with Sir Nicholas’ face on it, his hand in the middle holding the touchable Harry had gotten him for his deathday, brandishing it defensively. It looked like he’d been trying to protect Justin.

“Harry, get behind me,” Severus signed immediately.  “Fluffy, on guard.” All three of the dog’s heads shot to attention, and he grew to his full size, stepping forward so Harry was safely positioned between his front paws.

“Oooh, someone causing trouble!”   Peeves came forward cackling, but stopped when he saw Harry, a pout forming on his face.  “Oh, it’s you- I can’t mess with Potter- too cute, and there’s this awful sensation of… what’s it you call it… oh yes, guilt…”

Severus couldn’t even take the time to appreciate that not even Peeves could bring himself to bother Harry, of all things, but instead waved the poltergeist away. “We have bigger concerns right now,” he said, “so you should really go do whatever it is you do somewhere else.”

“This isn’t my usual modus operandi, but I suppose I could go for help…” Peeves offered, and Severus looked at him distrustfully- was he being sincere?   Before he could asses Peeves’ motivations, however, a large group of students came wandering into the hallway.  Harry, who had been trying to see around Fluffy to follow the conversation between his guardian and Peeves (without much success, which was honestly good, as he definitely would have taken offense to being called cute by a poltergeist), was visible to them as they stepped through, and they took in the scene with wide eyes.

“Oh Potter, he’s done it again!” Someone in the back was dumb enough to say, and Severus immediately pounced on the third-year Ravenclaw.

“Harry has done nothing- I was here with him when we found them, and he has just gotten out of quidditch practice.  Detention for making unfounded accusations!” He shouldn’t have done what he did next, but, wanting to make sure that this wasn’t whoever had attacked his child, he cast a sneaky legilimens.  

It wasn’t them- they just happened to believe the tosh going around about Harry being the heir and had a bad habit of speaking before they thought.  Well, Severus could cure them of that when they were scrubbing cauldrons until their back ached.

“Everybody, move along!” He ordered next, giving an extra glare to the Ravenclaw, and he conjured his Patronus to send to Minerva (he may have used a memory of him and Harry working in the lab together- sue him).  Harry watched the doe spring to life with wide eyes, and he realised belatedly that he’d never actually done one in front of him.

“It’s so pretty ,” Harry breathed in awe, and Severus took the time it took the Gryffindor head to arrive to explain to Harry what was happening (since he hadn’t been able to lipread the conversation with Severus’ back turned while he was chastising the group of students) and tell him what a Patronus was.

“I’ll teach you to do one too, when you’re a little older,” he promised his child, and Harry smiled despite the situation.

“Hey Aunt Mins,” Harry greeted her immediately when she came up.  “Are we gonna be able to fix Nick with the restorative drought too?  We can right, he’ll be okay?” His anxiety was palpable, and the tabby animagus reached out to ruffle his hair reassuringly.

“Of course dear, he’ll be just fine, as will all the children,” she promised him, and he visibly relaxed, touching her with the amount of trust he placed in her word- for someone who’d been through as much as Harry had, that trust was a rare and precious thing.

“Here,” she told Severus as she easily levitated Justin and seamlessly conjured a fan to waft Sir Nicholas to the hospital wing, “I have this under control; you just take Harry back to your common room.”

“Thank you,” Severus sighed, relieved, and Harry didn’t object when the man took his hand, wanting to maintain physical contact with him in light of what had just happened.  “Come, little one,” he said, turning his face so the child could understand him.

“I’m not that little,” Harry grumbled for what felt like the millionth time as he padded along beside him, his other hand clenched in Fluffy’s fur.

“Of course you’re not, dear,” Severus murmured distractedly as his eyes scanned for danger.  Harry sighed- he’d forgotten to even turn his face so Harry could see his response, so it was clear he was distracted.  What must have been a noise startled the man, as suddenly and for no reason apparent to Harry, the potions master jumped and grabbed Harry up into his arms.

“I think I’ll just keep you here,” he told the child, and Harry nodded, understanding that this was what Sev needed to feel secure and not wanting to make things worse by arguing with him. Harry began to feel a bit nervous- things didn’t seem quite so bad to him, since everyone who had been petrified would be back to normal before too long, but the tension he could feel in Severus’ shoulders made him wonder whether he was underreacting or if Sev was overreacting…

_____

“Alright, now we add two sprigs of comfrey,” Hermione muttered to herself.  They were in an abandoned passageway that they’d found through Fred and George (who had a lovely ‘no questions asked’ policy when any of their friends came to them saying they needed a way to break school rules), and their cauldron was set on an old rickety stool with a hole cut in the bottom so the fire could reach it.

“Then what?” Daphne asked, one of the other two girls who had offered to help her (well, they’d all been willing, but Tracey could be clumsy when she was nervous, and Millie pointed out reasonably that she was a bit large for stealth missions).

“Then we can’t really do much until it’s time to add the knot-grass,” Hermione said, “which according to the directions can only be done on the full moon, so we’ve hit a lull for a while.”

“So who should we sneak in as?” Pansy asked, and Hermione tugged at a curl as she thought for a moment.

“Well, the twins are a safe bet- we wouldn’t even have to kidnap them, just ask them to hide for a bit.  We can’t ask Percy, though, for obvious reasons, and while it’d be nice to have at least one of us sniffing out info in the girls’ dorm, Lavender is too much of a gossip and Parvati is petrified at the moment, so I guess we will just have to cut our losses and ask Nev to be our third person.”

“Nev is good though, since nobody would expect him to be up to anything suspicious,” Pansy pointed out.

“We’re all gonna be boys- that’ll be strange,” Daphne mused.

“More like distasteful,” Pansy sniffed.

“You think boys are distasteful in general,” Hermione teased, laughing.

“I’m surprised there are people who don’t,” she replied, sticking her button nose up in the air.

“Whatever Pans,” Daphne rolled her ice-blue eyes at their friend.  “Let’s just go eat dinner.”

_____

“Have I grown at all, Aunt Poppy?” Harry whined at his monthly check-up, looking at her with pleading green eyes.

“Hmm,” she studied him carefully.  “Nothing I can find on the height chart, but let me cast a spell to see if there’s some minor change.”

She waved her wand and gave him a slight, friendly smile.  “Yep, here we go- a quarter of a centimeter. Isn’t that lovely?”

“I guess,” Harry sighed.

“Hey,” Poppy reached up to ruffle his hair.  “You’ll grow, darling, I promise- you’re on a good regime of potions, and you might not get as tall as you would have been, but you’ll get taller.  You’ll be a handsome, healthy man one day.”

“Alright,” Harry sighed again, looking morosely at where his feet hung off the side of the bed, unable to reach the floor.  “If you say so.”

“There are benefits to being little, though, you know,” the nurse gently pulled his chin up to tell him, and then she winked at him.

“Like what?” Harry asked, looking at her cautiously.

“Like your Aunt Poppy giving you two ice creams for being such a good patient,” she teased, ruffling his hair.

“Really?” He perked up.

“Of course, dear- anything for my favourite little man,” she chuckled, and his smile fell just a bit at being called ‘little’ again, but the promise of two ice creams overrode most of the frustration.  She let him pick out what he liked from the freezer in her office and flood him back down to the Slytherin dorms before going to talk to Severus, a frown finally making its way onto her face, now that Harry wasn’t looking.

“How’s he doing?” The man immediately put down the grading he was working on, eyes snapping up to Poppy.

“Still no weight gain, and his iron levels are… disappointing,” she sighed, anxiously tugging a strand of hair out of her bun.

“Shouldn’t he be better by now?” Severus despaired.  “It’s been a year!”

“And he was heinously abused for twelve, Severus- these things don’t just go away overnight,” she reminded, but the man still picked up a pot of ink from his desk and threw it against the wall in frustration, not even bothering to wave his wand to clean the mess it made when it shattered.

“There just aren’t many cases of malnutrition of this severity in the wizarding world,” Poppy continued.  “We’re doing the best we can, but it’s a process.”

“Well, it’s taking too long,” Severus grumbled.  “I’m going to take him to a muggle nutrition specialist, over Easter- maybe their treatments will be more advanced than the ones in the wizarding world.”

“That’s a good idea,” the medi-witch agreed.  “Just consult me before you start any of the treatments they recommend, so I can make sure they won’t react badly with anything we’re doing.”

“Of course, woman- I’m not an idiot,” the man snapped, and Poppy just let it go- he never lost his temper with Harry, of course, but his worry did tend to find other outlets in lashing out at other people.  Baby steps for a toddler of a man, then.

Chapter Text

Harry was relaxing happily in Sev’s office, his nose in a book, when Sev suddenly looked up at him.

“I’ve got two Gryffindors coming into the potions classroom for detention in a bit, so I’m just going to go gather the dirty cauldrons into a pile for them- will you be okay here on your own for a few minutes?” He asked Harry, who giggled.

“Sev, you know I’ll be fine- you’ll be right through that door,” he pointed at the door connecting the office to the potions classroom, “and your office is warded tighter than Azkaban.”

“Alright, if you say so…” Severus sighed, and then told Fluffy to keep a close eye out for any danger.  Of course, he would still be within earshot of anything super loud, so he really shouldn’t have been as worried as he was- sue him.

Unfortunately, the conversation Seamus and Dean were having outside the office door wasn’t loud enough for Severus to hear from the classroom, and Harry couldn’t hear it either, for obvious reasons, so he kept reading the new Spiderman comic, oblivious to the conversation going on outside.  Fluffy heard, but didn’t think it was anything threatening to his little human, so he merely kept swiveling his three heads around the room.

“So your diary was missing then, but that’s all they took?” Dean was asking Seamus.

“Yeah- weird, I know, but I don’t think I liked it too much anyway.  I think it might use some of the writer’s magic to make the words appear, and it wasn’t really worth it just to watch Tom or whatever his name was yell at me for drawing dicks all over it.”

“That’s probably why it was in a puddle outside of Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom in the first place,” Dean agreed.  “Diaries that won’t let you draw dicks on the corners of the pages are no fun.”

“You know what else is no fun?” Seamus sighed in his thick Irish brogue.  “Detention.”

“I know mate, but you were the one who made our potion explode.”

“I really wasn’t trying this time, I swear…”

“I know, but you’d think if that Ronald Weasley kid in Slytherin can be an actual fire elemental and still make decent potions, you wouldn’t have so much trouble with it…”

“Everybody’s a critic,” Seamus groaned, and Dean laughed.

“Aw c’mon mate- you know I’m your biggest fan; I just have some… normal concerns about the amount of things you make explode.”

Severus came back from gathering the pile of dirty cauldrons to open the door, and their conversation immediately stopped, their eyes going warily to Harry, who didn’t seem to mind.

“Oh, hey guys,” he peeked up at them, and they returned nervous greetings as Severus watched, hands on hips.

“Alright boys- come on through.  Time to scrub the cauldrons.”

“Can I help?” Harry asked plaintively- when he wasn’t being forced to clean, he found he actually enjoyed the sense of satisfaction that came from getting rid of tough stains.

“You’re not in detention, little one,” Severus reminded him, and Harry sighed.

“Oh, alright, later,” Severus signed, seeing that Harry really wanted to for some reason, and that it wasn’t just a guilty sense of obligation.  “After these two dunderheads inevitably miss something, you can come clean up after them- but only if you still want to.”  Harry had to bite back a giggle, and Seamus and Dean watched their hands move back and forth suspiciously.

“Well, don’t just stand there,” the potions master ordered out loud, turning back to the two Gryffindors.  “Get scrubbing!”

_____

“Alright, we’re finally ready,” Hermione said, peering into the bubbling cauldron.  “George, Fred, and Neville are hiding in another secret passageway until we come to get them, so the way is clear.  Now we just have to actually drink the stuff.”

“Gross,” Pansy made a face.  “Essence of boy.”

“I’m actually more worried about the bone-crushing pain of changing, but you do you,” Daphne rolled her eyes at their bombastic friend.

“Here we go, then.” Hermione took three hairs, two ginger and one blonde, out of their respective glass phials in her pocket.  “Cheers.” She dropped the three hairs into three glasses of the bubbling mixture, watching it change colours to two glasses of bright orange, one just a shade lighter than the other- Hermione was willing to bet that if she turned the lights off, they would glow in the dark like the Tampico her latina classmate used to drink at lunch time.  The third glass was a muted beige, and Hermione made a little noise in the back of her throat- she would have thought Neville’s potion would have been more of an earthy green colour. Well, never mind that.

They each got into a separate corner of the passage and drank, and there were some grunts of pain (these girls were too strong to scream over a little thing like gut-wrenching agony- it was only slightly worse than period cramps, after all).  Pansy and Daphne each stepped out as nearly-indistinguishable twins, looking at each other.

“How do we tell which of us is which?  Harry knows, but we can’t exactly ask him…” Daphne chewed her lips.

“The twins are always fucking with people anyway- I don’t think we really need to know,” Pansy shrugged, more concerned with the sensation of the odd hanging bits between her legs and the lack of her newly-flourishing breasts.

“Meow!” Came from Hermione’s corner, and the girls looked at each other in concern.

“Hermione!” Pansy cried, opening the door to see a little beige kitten whose face clearly said “ well, fuck…”

“Wait, if she had really drunk a cat hair with polyjuice potion, she normally wouldn’t become a cat- she’d be like, a freaky cat-woman,” Pansy pointed out.  “So…”

“That must be her animagus!” Daphne squealed, getting unusually excited- she’d always wanted a cat.

“So, like, visualize becoming human again, I guess?” Pansy tried, and Hermione scrunched her little kitty face.

Instead of becoming, well, Hermione, the cat grew and grew into a large tan lioness.  She growled plaintively- this was unexpected.

“Oh shit,” Pansy groaned.  “Um…”

“Wait!” Daphne exclaimed, getting more excited (big kitty> small kitty, after all).  “My mum read something about this, in a really old magic book- Hermione must be a shapeshifter!”

“No way!” Pansy squealed.  “Aren’t those like, metamorphmagi with the bonus of being able to do animal transformations- that’s wicked!”

“Oh, so it’s a different sort of visualization then… Hermione, picture becoming human again, but this time with the knowledge that you have access to any form you want, not just the human-cat dichotomy.”

The lioness, cranky in the cramped passageway, gave them a look that clearly said “helpful guys, real helpful…”  It took a couple tries, during which she had some rather funky appearances (like a lioness with Hermione’s bushy hair, or Hermione but with a lioness tail), but after about fifteen minutes, she eventually got back to herself.

“Well, that’s great,” she said.  “But now I still have to figure out how to transform into Neville, since he accidentally gave us cat hair.”

“We’ll wait- we’re enjoying this,” Daphne smirked, and Hermione glared at her but scrunched her face again.  After a few minutes, she gasped triumphantly.

“Ha! Got it- and it only took five minutes!” She exclaimed.  “Wait, why are you still laughing…”

“Mia,” Pansy managed through her giggles.  “You still have boobs…”

“Oh,” Hermione looked down, embarrassed, and focussed for another couple of minutes until they shrank away.  Finally, finally, they put on their properly-sized robes that they’d asked the boys to bring when they got their hair, and they were off.

____

An hour in the common room yielded no new information (except for a lot of speculation about Harry that made them grit their teeth angrily- luckily, the other Gryffindors were used to the real Neville, Fred, and George defending Harry), but it did end with their cover nearly being blown when Pansy and Daphne started turning back into themselves. Hermione was laughing as they ran back to the passageway where they’d stocked their friends, and Pansy and Daphne were glaring at her.

“What?” She asked, faux-innocently.  “It was about time I had a turn to laugh at you two.”

“About time you got here!” Neville groaned as soon as they opened the secret door.  “I have to pee so bad!”

“Have fun with that,” Pansy shuddered, very glad she never had to use the uh… fire hose…

“Wait a second…” George (or was it Fred?) looked at Hermione critically.  “Why are you still Neville- and what took you so long?”

“So, it turns out that Hermione’s a shapeshifter,” Pansy said calmly, biting back a smile when two identical faces lit up in glee.

“No way!” They yelled in unison.  “That is wicked!”

“Oh no,” Hermione realised suddenly.  “Theo’s gonna have a cow…”

____

“So,” Severus came in and pulled the three into his office as soon as they entered the common room.  “What did you find out?”

“Nothing useful,” Hermione sighed.  “Except that I’m a shapeshifter.”

“Wait, what?” The potions master barked.  “You are twelve!   Those are exceedingly rare, and the power usually never shows until the witch or wizard reaches maturity.”

“Neville accidentally gave me cat hair instead of his own, so that must have triggered something,” Hermione shrugged, still somewhat disappointed in the lack of information they’d gleaned from their mission.

“Of course he did,” Severus pinched the bridge of his nose- Longbottom tried, bless him, but he was still an accident waiting to happen, many a time.  His stern grandmother probably had something to do with it- perhaps he ought to have a talk with Augusta…

“Wait a second,” Daphne realised suddenly.  “Isn’t it kind of strange that Hermione, Harry, and Ron all have some sort of rare, unprecedented power- I mean, Ron’s an elemental despite the fact that there hasn’t been a full-blooded one in centuries, Harry can channel more power than that God guy, essentially, and Hermione, a muggleborn, is the wizarding world’s youngest recorded shapeshifter.”

“That is rather weird,” Hermione agreed.  “And then we have Luna, who, if Theo is to be believed, is part-fairy, and Draco may or may not have some buried veela somewhere… is there something in the water here, or something?”

“Forget that,” Pansy waved off her concerns impatiently.  “Hermione, you’re a muggleborn shapeshifter- do you realise that this essentially disproves pureblood superiority all on its own?”

“No, don’t tell anyone!” Hermione yelled, startling them.  “This could be more useful as a secret- I mean, we’ll tell our friends, obviously, but don’t you realise that this could be a good ace up our sleeve?”

“I suppose…” Pansy sighed.  “But…”

“Pansy, sweetie, I could have all the hard proof in the world that muggleborns are just as good, and those purebloods who are determined to think they’re better than us will still never change their minds- it’s the same with racism in the muggle world, luv- there’s no benefits to putting this out in the open right now.”

“She’s right, Pans,” Daphne sighed.  “Just because you weren’t raised to believe that doesn’t mean that all purebloods can be this open-minded.  And Hermione had a point about keeping it a secret- if she’s ever in mortal danger again, this could save her life, as long as an attacker doesn’t know about it.”

“Fair enough,” Pansy agreed reluctantly.  “I’m going to go find Harry- I need a hug…”

“She’s really upset on your behalf, Mia,” Daphne said, watching her back as it disappeared behind the closing office door.  “Normally she never admits to needing hugs- she just takes them by force.”

_____

“Alright Harry,” Severus signed to the preteen on the first day of Easter break as they prepared to leave Grimmauld Place.  “We’re going to apparate to the closest point near the nutritional specialist and then take a taxi, and I need you to keep careful hold of my arm.  The sensation may be uncomfortable, so if you need it, I have a stomach-soother potion that you’re free to ask for.”

“Okay,” Harry agreed, not too excited to see the doctor- he’d never seen anyone but Aunt Poppy and Sev for medical care, and he didn’t like the idea of some stranger poking and prodding at him.

“Hey,” Severus gently lifted his chin so Harry was looking at his face.  “It’s going to be fine, okay? I’ve researched very carefully, and this woman knows what she’s doing- she sees lots of refugee children worse off than you are now (although maybe not when you first came to me, he thought viciously, ready to murder the Dursleys), and she’ll be discreet.”

“Alright,” Harry sighed.  “If you want me to, I’ll go, but I feel fine,” he added stubbornly, and Severus couldn’t help a quirk of his lip- sometimes, his stubbornness was so reminiscent of Lily.

“Well, we want to get you doing great,” he told the preteen, ruffling his hair.  They apparated from the living room, and Harry groaned at the feeling of having his insides squeezed through a small tube.

“Here,” Severus handed him the light blue, ginger-smelling potion before Harry even had to ask, seeing the green tinge in his face.  Harry took it gratefully, drinking it slowly, so it wouldn’t immediately come back up.

“She will have to take off your shirt and trousers, but she’ll leave you in your boxers,” Severus explained to Harry as he hailed a cab.  “And remember, you have nothing to be embarrassed about.”

The cab wound through crowded uptown streets until it reached a squat, clean building with the words Dr. Angela Norton- Child Nutrition Specialist out front, above a sign that said we work with UNICEF.   At the front desk, a woman wearing a hijab was typing away at a computer, and she smiled at them as Severus led Harry in by the hand.

“Appointment for Snape,” he told her brusquely, and she made a few clicks on the keyboard.

“Ah yes,” she said, the slightest tinge of a Middle-Eastern accent coloring the words.  “We have you right here- you’re the only appointment of the afternoon, but you’re a little early, and Dr. Norton is still on her lunch break.  Would you mind sitting down for a few minutes while she finishes up?”

“That’s fine,” Severus gave the woman a jerky nod, patting Harry’s hand reassuringly as he led him to the couch in the waiting room.  He tried to keep the own anxiety out of his posture- what if there was nothing she could do for Harry? He didn’t think he was successful, but luckily Harry was too absorbed in his own nervousness to notice his guardian’s.

“Do you like comic books?” The receptionist asked kindly, noticing his unease, and Harry nodded.

“Here,” she continued.  “We just got in a few new ones- do you have any favorites?”

“Do you have Spiderman or Wonder Woman?” Harry asked quietly, and she nodded.

“We just got in a new edition of Wonder Woman, and I must say, you have excellent taste,” she told him, and was rewarded with a small smile.

Harry was soon absorbed in the comic, and Severus also found himself reading the dialogue bubbles out of the corner of his eye- anything to distract from his own thoughts.  

“Harry?” A petite brunette woman with a kind face poked her head around the corner.  “We’re ready for you.” Fluffy tapped Harry with his nose, and he looked up and saw the doctor waiting for him.

“O-kay,” he stammered, putting down the comic book.

“You can bring that in with you if you’d like,” she said in BSL, remembering from her file that the child was deaf.

“You sign?” He asked, perking up, and she smiled at him.

“I do indeed,” she replied, her hands moving deftly.  “I also speak a little Urdu, Pashto, and a bit of Swahili- I’m trying to learn more languages so I don’t have to bring in a translator as much, but I’m unfortunately rather busy; this is a slow day by our standards.”

“Oh,” Harry replied, not really knowing what else to say.  

“Alright, let’s just get your height here,” she said, motioning to a chart on the wall, and Harry groaned.

“Welcome to the club,” Angela laughed, “At least you still have a chance to grow.”

“Hmmm,” she tapped her pen against her clipboard.  “Definitely below average, but I suppose that’s why you’re here.”

“Yeah,” Harry sighed.

“No need to sound so happy about it,” the doctor teased as she took his weight, hiding a frown of concern- definitely could be better.

“Alright now- let’s just go in and get on the exam table,” she said, Harry gulped- this was where she was gonna make him take his clothes off.

“So,” she turned to Severus as he helped Harry scramble up onto the exam table, “this is your adopted son, yes?”

“Yes,” Severus confirmed, and Harry, who had been turned around properly and able to see his lips moving, smiled widely.

“I think he liked hearing that,” Dr. Norton laughed.  “Look at those pearly whites. So…” she continued to less comfortable topics, “what kind of situation did you get him from?  I know it might be uncomfortable, but I have to ask.”

“He was raised in Britain by his dead mother’s sister- I work at the boarding school he goes to.  I had no idea he was staying with her; his mother and I were best friends as children, and I would have objected if I knew that she was the relative who took him in.”

“Then you have a history with the family,” Angela hummed.  “And this sister- she was abusive towards him, then?”

“Yes, very much so,” Severus agreed, squeezing Harry’s hand reassuringly to calm his tremors.  “Her husband as well- Harry was regularly beaten and starved, which is why we’re here- we haven’t been having as much luck as we’d hoped with just good nutrition and dietary supplements.  It’s been over a year since I’ve adopted him, and you can still see his ribs when he’s shirtless.”

“Alright, let me take a look then,” the doctor sighed, knowing this was always the hard part for the children.  “Would you like to undress by yourself, dear? I can leave the room, if you’d rather…”

“No, it’s alright,” Harry said.  “I just wanna get this over with.”

He took his shirt off first, and it took all of Angela’s training to keep her face straight as she looked at the network of scars- it was highly unusual for a case of domestic abuse to be quite this bad.  If she didn’t know better, she would have thought that they’d rescued him from a war zone where he was being tortured.

“Ah yes,” she hummed instead.  “I see…” she looked at his visible ribs, his concave tummy, which should be a little pudgy at this age, and his skinny, scarred upper thighs and scrawny arms.

“Alright luv- let me listen to your lungs, and your heartbeat,” she said, putting her stethoscope to his chest.

“Lungs are still a little weak,” she clucked.  “But that’s only to be expected, I suppose… still, I would like you to be super careful with any lung or chest infections he might get- they need to be treated with extra care because of his condition.”

“I was aware, yes, but thank you,” Severus said blandly, forcing himself to keep the emotion out of his voice.  He knew that any illness would be dangerous for him, of course, but it was still difficult to hear said out loud again, by another doctor.

“Alright, so why don’t we let Harry go to the waiting room for a bit while we talk treatments,” she said, and Severus shook his head.

“He can stay,” the potions master declared firmly.  “I’d rather keep him close to me… if you don’t mind,” he forced himself to add.

“Alright then,” she said.  “I’m going to prescribe him a number of pediasure products to help him gain weight and add necessary vitamins to his system.  And in addition, I will supply you with a few months’ worth of these,” she said, holding up a granola-bar looking thing, “that I give to kids coming out of countries where there were food shortages, and they should help him gain weight as well.”

“This drink has a smiling baby on the front,” Harry groaned, looking at one of the numerous Pediasure bottles- some for protein, fiber, vitamins, others to help with bone strength- pretty much the whole spectrum, really… “I’m not a smiling baby…”

“Don’t worry, sweetie- I prescribe these to kids your age all the time,” Angela laughed.  “I’ve even had to give them to pregnant women before. And they taste great- sometimes I drink one with lunch, just because.”

“I’ll put it in a glass for you, so you don’t have to look at the baby,” Severus promised when he still looked dubious.

“So, do you two have reliable transportation?” Dr. Norton asked.  “There are a number of boxes to carry, but I could always have them shipped…”

“No, we’re getting a cab,” Severus assured- he didn’t want anyone knowing the location of Grimmauld Place, especially a muggle who wouldn’t understand the concept of the Fidelius charm.  He could also shrink the packages as soon as they left the office.

“Alright then, I’ll give you what you need for the next few months, and then I’d like to schedule an appointment for the summer,” she said.  She left for the storeroom and came back, her and the receptionist carrying four large boxes between them. Severus took them easily- he was stronger than he looked- and he and Harry checked out and began making their way back to Grimmauld Place.

______

“Oh, that’s so cute, cub,” Sirius exclaimed when he saw the bottles Sev was unpacking.  “It’s got a smiling baby!”

“Watch your back, or I’ll give Padfoot a bath,” Harry threatened, and Sirius blanched and backed off.  Ron, who was just sort of hanging out, put an arm around Harry’s shoulder in solidarity.

“I don’t think it’s so bad,” he tried to comfort his friend.  “I mean, at least the flavors are nice…”

“That’s not the worst though,” Harry groaned, pulling a keychain out of his pocket. “Apparently she’s worried about my lungs, so I have to carry around this emergency inhaler, and it’s got Winnie the Pooh on it…”

“That sucks mate,” Ron patted his shoulder.  After dinner, he disappeared for a while with Remus, and when he came back, he had his own Winnie the Pooh pez dispenser on a keychain in his own pocket.  It had cost him all the muggle money he’d saved up, but if it made Harry feel better, it was worth it.   Harry was worth it- Harry was worth anything.  

Chapter Text

Harry, Ron, and Fimi were in Myrtle’s bathroom for their weekly meeting with the ghost, Sev standing guard outdoors with Fluffy (the ghost was a little too… excitable… for his taste).  She was regaling them with the latest gossip of ‘who kissed who and who liked who and who is jealous of who liking who?’ when Severus received a Patronus message from Minerva.

“Severus- we’re on immediate lockdown. We’ve found some writing on the wall in blood- Colin Creevey has been taken down into the chamber.”

“Harry, Ronald!” He yelled, knowing Ron would gather Harry, “It’s time to leave- there’s an emergency!”

“We’re coming!” Ron called back, but suddenly the bathroom began to shake.  From below, Harry felt the snake start speaking again.

“NO!” She cried out.   “You can’t make me- you can’t make me kill him!”  

There was a thrash and a large crash, and the stone walls and ceiling of the bathroom began to fall, blocking the exit.  

“HARRY!” Severus called in.   “ARE YOU ALRIGHT?!”

“We’re both fine for now, thanks for asking!” Ron called back, a little sardonically, and Severus presumed he was translating the conversation into BSL for Harry.

“Huge motherfucking snake hell fucking no this fucking door needs to OPEN! ” Fimi began to panic, and at the word ‘open’ in parseltongue, an entryway opened near the sink.

“Uh, Sev!”  Harry called out, “We found a secret door!”  The bathroom shook again.

“I think we’re going to have to go through it!” Ron yelled to the professor.  “If we stay here, we might get crushed!”

“Be careful!” Severus yelled.  “I’m sending for help!”  He sent his Patronus off, since he didn’t want to leave the doorway while his child was down in what was presumably the chamber.

“Oh, it’s a slide,” Harry remarked, as he and Ron joined hands and entered, Fimi yelling about how this was a ‘ bad idea, and I once tried to eat a coconut!’

“Okay, so I think we’ll just have to keep moving forward, then…” Harry sighed, as they reached another doorway.  “It’s still pretty unstable here.” As if to prove their point, the large snake cried out in pain again, and the ceiling shook.  Harry was nearly crushed by a falling stone, but Ron shoved him forward, his own foot getting caught under it as he scrambled back.

“Ron!” Harry panicked from behind the wall of rock.  “Ron Ron Ron!”

“Shhh, hatchling- he is alright,” Fimi soothed.   “I can feel his heat- he is alive and well, his foot is just injured.”

“We have to get him out!” Harry yelled at the viper, preparing to channel as much magic as it took to blast the rock off of his brother.

“I think he wants you to go on further,” Fimi couldn’t understand what Ron was saying, but she could interpret the tone of his voice and the anxious heat of his body well enough.   “It is still unstable here, and if you blast the rock, bad things might happen- the best way to keep you both safe is to go forward and calm the big snake.  You are the only one who can,” she told him.

“Fimi wants me to go on and call the snake!” He called out to the redhead.  “I’ll come back for you!”

He ran forward, wanting to find the snake before it did anymore structural damage that could hurt Ron.  Faster and faster, until his vision was blurring and his chest was on fire. Fimi wiggled down, reaching into his pocket with her fangs and pulling out his inhaler.

“Shhh, hatchling- you are of no use to anyone if you collapse- take your medicine and rest a moment,” she ordered sternly, shoving it at him, and Harry reluctantly complied, puffing Pooh’s head twice to dispense the vapours.  He leaned against the wall for as short a time as he possibly could until his vision was no longer full of starbursts, before wandering forward resolutely again.

“Basilisk!” Fimi yelled suddenly.   “Hide your eyes- her gaze is deadly!”   Harry did as instructed, closing his eyes and feeling very, very vulnerable with two senses cut off.

“Tell me what you can sense,” he told Fimi, his only useful connection besides his sense of touch.

“The boy, the one in the chamber- he is towards the back,” she hissed.   “The basilisk thrashes in pain- there is something semi-solid ordering her around.  I tell you when it is safe to open, and when to close,” she said, and Harry stumbled forward, feeling the wall until Fimi told him he could open his eyes.

When he did, he saw the prone, pale body of Colin Creevey lying on the ground, the figure of a tall, handsome teenager with pale skin, dark hair, and refined, thin features holding Colin’s wand.  He turned towards Harry and began to monologue, but he moved around so much, Harry had no chance of lipreading.

At the end, the words that he’d spelled in the air, Tom Marvolo Riddle, rearranged themselves to form those of I am Lord Voldemort.   Harry gasped- this random hologram bloke was teenage Lord Voldemort, and he also was apparently fond of anagrams.  

Tom seemed to be waiting for him to say something, and Harry sighed.  Villains were always so dramatic.   Well, fuck him then.

“I’m deaf,” Harry signed, not bothering to talk out loud for the bloke who was no doubt about to try to kill both him and Colin.  This time, Harry distinctly saw his translucent lips form the words ‘oh, fuck’ and he felt a vindictive sense of satisfaction for throwing a wrench in the works.  Now he just had to free the snake from the grip of teen-Voldy.

“Hatchling, look out!” The basilisk cried as Tom said something to her with his face turned away from Harry’s, and Harry dodged, but wasn’t quite fast enough as one of her long fangs sank into her elbow.

The bite itself wasn’t so bad, but the fire of pain that followed the venom being injected into his veins was awful, and Harry couldn’t even focus on the basilisk’s apologies or panicked wails or angry hisses in Tom’s direction.  He felt himself fading, far too fast, and with an immense effort, he reached a finger to rub Fimi’s gorgeous, prismatic head.

“Whatever you do, save Ron once I’m gone.  And tell Sev and Siri and Remy…” here he paused, coughing up blood.   “Tell them and everyone else that I love them.”

“Don’t you dare die on me, hatchling!” She scolded, frantic.   “I forbid you!”

“Sorry, pretty girl,” Harry let out a dry chuckle.  

“Don’t worry, beautiful,” Tom cooed at her, “he’s off to join his mudblood mother, but you’re welcome to come with me, once I’ve risen again.  It’s much better on my side.”

Fimi lunged at him, baring her fangs as the not-quite solid teenager scrambled back.  The basilisk, temporarily freed from his influence as he fled the very angry, very venomous viper, nudged Harry fervently.

“Please don’t die please don’t die please don’t die! ” She begged, and suddenly there was a flash of fire and wings up above.  A Phoenix had arrived.

“Fix him!” The basilisk hissed, as Fimi continued to distract Tom.  Fawkes seemed to get the gist well enough- this child was pure of heart, and a favourite of the castle (unlike its headmaster), and she had called him to his aid.

The Phoenix laid its head on Harry’s shoulder, pearly tears making its way onto his elbow, and the wound slowly faded to a scar as Harry’s vision came back into focus.

“Thanks pretty bird,” he croaked, as Tom finally managed to dodge Fimi, shooing Fawkes off of Harry.  He pointed the wand at him, and Harry gulped.

Dodge dodge dodge, he thought frantically, and suddenly felt himself shrinking, his limbs shrinking in and his skin hardening to scales.  When the process stopped, there was a baby basilisk on the ground.

Oh, he thought, mildly surprised.   I found my animagus form.  

Harry’s transformation was the final step the basilisk needed to break away completely.  This clearly wasn’t just any hatchling, it was obviously her hatchling, and she must protect him, must use the miracle of being finally given a child after so long to break away and protect the school, like her noble master Salazar had placed her to do.

She looked around noticing the heat radiating off of the diary, going towards the evil man who had enslaved her.  With a great lunge, she sank her teeth into the diary, which spurted ink in great shudders as a scream emerged, Tom’s apparition faded away, and a little colour slowly returned to Colin’s cheeks.

“It is finished, little one,” she told Harry, who was still figuring out how to slither, and she nudged him fondly.   “I am Seren- I shall be your mother snake.”

“‘M not that little,” he grumbled, and she laughed, a warm, pleasant sound that seemed to fill the chamber like a whispering breeze.

“You may tell your snake friend she can look now- my gaze is only lethal when I choose, and now that I am under my own control again anyone may see me safely.”

“That’s cool,” Harry mused.   “‘Specially since my animagus form is one.  Hey, can I ask you a question?”

“Of course, hatchling- anything you like,” she responded, and Harry slithered a bit closer.

“How come everybody was petrified, and not killed?”

“Ah, that was a bit of clever planning, on my part,” the basilisk let out another sybilline chuckle.   “I was unable to resist the order to turn my gaze upon students, but luckily I was able to find those who had some sort of protective reflection- the cat and the Indian child had the water, and the other boy had the ghost to protect him.  You saved me just in time to keep me from being forced to kill the little snippet over there.” She motioned to Colin.

“Oh man!” Harry jumped, or tried to, which was a funny picture when he had no legs at the moment.   “I have to get to Ron- how do I become human again?!”

“Well, let me tell you what my Salazar used to do…”

____

It only took Harry fifteen minutes to transform back, which Seren proudly informed him was a record for a first time, and Fawkes gathered Harry and Colin.  Harry worried he wouldn’t be able to carry him, but he seemed to have no trouble.

“Come visit soon, won’t you?” Seren called up, and Harry promised that he would.  

“Ron!” Harry called.  The redhead had managed to blast the rock off of his foot with sheer heat, and even Harry was sweating as he came through the hole he’d made.

“Are you okay?!” Harry asked frantically, and Ron, leaning against the wall with his injured foot held above the ground, waved his concerns aside.

“Never mind that, what’s that on your elbow?!”  He’d immediately noticed Harry’s new scar, and Harry explained what happened in the chamber while Fawkes carried them back up.

“Blimey mate, I almost lost you!” Ron had tears in his bright blue eyes, using the arm that wasn’t holding onto an unconscious Colin (who he insisted was too heavy for Harry) to wipe them away.

“I’m fine Ron, I promise- but we need to get your foot looked at- here, let me help you!”

“I’ve got it- you’re too small to support my weight,” Ron told him firmly, hopping forward on one leg and stubbornly evading Harry’s efforts to help.  Severus, who had finally managed to blast a hole through the rock once the shaking stopped, ran forward immediately, his face one of absolute terror as he grabbed Harry up in his arms and began looking him over.

“Oh, thank Merlin,” he gasped, actually hyperventilating.  “I thought I’d lost y- WAIT A SECOND WHAT THE BLOODY FUCK IS ON YOUR ELBOW??! ”

“Never mind that, Ron needs to see Pomfrey,” Harry waved aside his concerns just as Ron cried “He got bitten by the basilisk!”

“You WHAT?! ” Severus gripped the wall for support, one arm still gripping Harry so tightly it was almost painful.

“It’s okay- Fawkes healed me,” Harry tried to reassure him, but that didn’t seem to help.

“We have to get you to Poppy right away!   Oh, and the other two,” he added belatedly, while Ron just rolled his eyes, laughing a bit despite the pain as Professor Snape conjured two stretchers, still holding Harry in his arms.

“Hey Sev?” Harry piped up, and black eyes were anxiously turned his way immediately.

“What- what is it?  Are you feeling alright?!” He blurted, breathing heavily with panic, and Harry couldn’t help but roll his eyes.

“I was just gonna ask- I accidentally found my animagus form,” he said, ignoring his guardian’s surprised gasp.  “And it was a baby basilisk- I was wondering if the venom might have changed the form somehow.”

“No,” Severus shook his head, still clutching Harry tightly, as if afraid he might disappear.  “That’s impossible- it might have facilitated the transformation so you didn’t have to go through the normal channels, but a wizard cannot change their inherent animagus form.”

“Oh, that’s cool,” Harry remarked, still feeling Sev’s heart beating like hummingbird wings in his chest as the man held him.

“That’s not the word I would choose,” Severus whispered faintly, and Harry worried he was going into shock as they reached the hospital wing.  Luckily, he was still able to explain everything to Aunt Poppy, who immediately descended on him.

“Oh, dear!” She groaned.  “Bitten by a basilisk- of all the…” she put him on a bed as Severus did the same for Ron and Colin, and Poppy took a moment to wave her wand and fix Ron’s foot before turning back to Harry.

“Yes, that’s very serious,” she said, running diagnostic charms.  “I’m going to keep you a week for observation.”

“What- nooo!” Harry whined.  “I’m all better- Fawkes healed me!”

“No arguments, young man,” she ordered him, and he sighed as she moved on to Colin.  The headmaster did eventually show up, and Severus glared vehemently at him the whole time as Colin eventually woke up, in a panic as he explained the situation.

“It’s alright, Col,” Harry soothed, trying to get up to go comfort him, but Severus picked him up and set him right back in bed. “Okay, guess I’ll do this from here, then,” he sighed.  “It wasn’t your fault,” he told the little first year seriously, who looked shocked to wake up after this entire experience to see his literal hero talking to him kindly.

“But…” he began, and Harry raised a hand.

“It would have happened to anybody,” he said.  “That was powerful dark magic, and you’re just a first year who didn’t know any better.  It was very strong of you to last so long. I’m sure Professor Dumbledore won’t punish you,” and he turned a stern little gaze to the old man, who raised his hands placatingly.

“Stronger wizards than he have been hoodwinked by Lord Voldemort- I have no intentions of punishing him,” he said.  “Now, if you excuse me, I have work to do in my office. Harry,” he turned towards the preteen, and Severus glared harder that he would dare talk to his child after all he’d done.  “Do you by any chance happen to have the diary on your person?”

“No,” Harry shook his head.  “Wasn’t exactly my top priority.”

“Oh,” the headmaster’s face fell, and he left as Poppy asked “aren’t you going to call Mr. Creevey’s parents?”

“Oh, I suppose I’ll do it,” she grumbled.  “Like I do everything around here.”

“It’s time for you to eat and go to bed,” he told Harry, as Ron with his newly-healed foot walked to Harry and crawled under the covers with him.  “Drink your potions and your shakes and eat some of this shepherd's pie,” he said, producing a dinner tray, “and I’ll call your dogfathers and let them know what happened.  Your friends can come visit in the morning.”

“It’s so early,” Harry complained, but by the time he’d finished all his medicines and started on the plate, his eyes were drooping.  Ron ramped up the heat in his body a bit, curling around Harry as he gobbled his own plate.

“Well, you’ve had a busy day,” Severus couldn’t help but smile as he pushed the half-eaten plate away and his eyes closed completely.

“You’ll stay?” He asked through closed eyes, and Severus squeezed his hand in confirmation, glad he’d been confident enough to ask.

It will all be alright, he told himself.   He’s alive; he’s breathing.  And you’re going to keep it that way.

Chapter Text

Due to everything that had happened, every exam except OWLs and NEWTs were cancelled, which frustrated Harry, as studying was originally his excuse to be allowed to do something besides ‘lay down and rest, young man!’  They’d let Ron go right away, and he’d only stayed the first night to keep Harry company.  Colin was released on day three, and Harry was bored.   His friends came to visit him, of course, but they were in classes most of the day.  Severus had cancelled all of his despite Harry telling him he didn’t need to, so all he really had to do was ‘listen’ to Sirius, Remus, and Severus ask him every two seconds if he was alright.

“I’m fine!” He told them for the fourth time in an hour, putting his pillow over his head and groaning into it.

“Are you sure, though?” Sirius asked, and Harry, who had just come out from under his pillow, put it over his head again, throwing the other one at Sirius.

“Look, it’s been four days, and I’m fine,” he argued.  “Can I please go now?”

“One week, young man, and don’t you dare think otherwise,” Poppy told him sternly, and Harry sighed but made to get up.

“Hey, where are you going?!” Severus yelped, reaching for him, and Harry rolled his eyes.

“I’ve gotta pee, Sev,” he asserted.  “I’ll be right back.”  As he stood, he felt a rush of dizziness and his vision faded in and out of focus.  It felt like the chamber all over again, and his last thought before strong arms kept him from hitting the floor was ‘shit, they’re never gonna let this go…’

____

“Is he going to be alright?!” Three male voices were inundating Poppy, and she waved them off as she anxiously did some diagnostic charms.

“There were trace amounts of the venom left over in his system, and they’re just now starting to show,” she said, sighing.  “Luckily, a few good rounds of anti-venom will be enough to purge them completely, which would have been impossible with the full amount.  A couple weeks and he’ll be just fine,” she told them, gathering an IV, loading it with medication, and inserting it into the arm of the unconscious second-year.

“Wha’ happ’nd?” Harry asked groggily when he came around about an hour later.

“You still had venom in your system,” Severus told him sternly, “and we were right to keep you here.”

“Ugh, you’re gonna hold this over me for the rest of my life, aren’t you?” Harry groaned, scrubbing a hand over his face.  “You woulda still got me here if I’d been in the dorms, y’know.”

“Maybe not fast enough, though,” the potions master asserted.  “And your pain tolerance is obviously far too high to really be conscientious enough of your own health- you should leave it to your Aunt Poppy and I.”

“How long am I stuck here?” Harry groaned, seeing that he could never win this argument with the equally stubborn older man.

“Two weeks,” Poppy said.  “We’re going to do three rounds of anti-venom, just to be safe, and you’ll probably be feeling a bit under the weather for a bit, anyway.”

Harry just sighed- he’d been counting the days until his release, and now there were fourteen more.   And then he felt something besides disappointment.

“Need a bucket,” he garbled, hand over his mouth.  Remus immediately conjured one, and Harry began retching violently into it as Severus gently positioned him so he wouldn’t pull the IV out.  Eventually, he stopped, breathing shakily as, pale and sweating, he collapsed against the pillows.

“I told you you wouldn’t be feeling very well,” Poppy sighed, feeling his forehead.  “That’s why I decided to keep you the full week, as well- with trace amounts of venom like this, it sometimes takes a little bit to show up.”

Harry just groaned and sank back further into the bed.  Severus exchanged concerned glances with the other two adults- it was not good news when Harry wasn’t feeling up to arguing with the nurse.

“Bla- Sirius,” Severus grit, “Can you please go wet a flannel with cold water and bring it back?”

“Of course,” he said, bringing it back quickly, and Severus took it and dabbed it on Harry’s forehead as he gave a weak groan.

“This came on so quickly,” Remus worried his hands.  “It’s frightening- what if we hadn’t been there?” The unspoken question still hung in the air- what if he’d been at the Dursleys’?

As they had every day, Harry’s friends came in as soon as classes were over, and seeing him lying pale (for his skin tone), and prone on the bed, they blanched.

“What the bloody hell happened?!” Ron yelped, rushing to Harry’s side, followed quickly by the others.

“There was some trace venom left in his system- he’ll be fine in a couple weeks, but he needs to rest, so if all but three of you could please leave, the rest can come back later, in shifts.”  It was by unspoken agreement that everyone except for Ron, Hermione, and Draco left, and Ron and Hermione each took one of Harry’s hands while Draco awkwardly brushed the hair off of his forehead.

Ron was arranging and rearranging Harry’s blankets and the flowers by his bed just to have some outlet for his nervous energy when a fourth year Hufflepuff by the name of Elias Hartley came in, wringing his hands together anxiously.

“What do you need?” Poppy asked him, immediately going into ‘healer mode.’

“Er, I’m not here because I’m sick,” he admitted.  “I uh… I was looking for Professor Snape- I have a confession to make…”

“If this is about the missing copper cauldron, I have bigger concerns at the moment, as you can see,” the potions master ground out, motioning to Harry.  He cared very deeply for the child and no longer had any interest in hiding it from anyone- Harry deserved to have people who were open about how much they loved him.

“Er, it’s actually about Harry Potter,” he mumbled, and Severus snapped his head around, a feral look in his eye.

“What about Harry Potter?” He snapped, not liking where this was going.

“Er, I was- itwasmewhocastthecuttingcurse,” he blurted out, and all three men immediately adopted identical looks of rage.  Remus had to tamp down on the wolf, and Ron came forward, fire in both palms, as Elias backed up nervously.

“And why did you cast such a thing on our child?” Severus whispered, his voice low and dangerous, a viper waiting to strike as he motioned to himself and the other two men.

“I… I got caught up in all the stuff about him being the heir, and I thought… I thought that maybe if I scared him a little, he’d stop,” Elias gulped, voice shaking.  “But then I started to doubt and feel really guilty and then he saved Colin and I realised there was no way he’d do that if he were the heir and he basically saved the school and I felt really bad and had to confess…”

“I will see you expelled,” Severus growled, and the Hufflepuff gulped but didn’t argue.  Then their attention was distracted as Harry came awake again, a strange look on his face as he summoned the bucket to himself violently and then retched into it again.  Everyone was at his side immediately, concerned looks on their faces.

“Wh- who’s tha?” Harry groaned, wiping his mouth and looking at Elias as Sirius brought a glass of cool water to Harry’s lips.

“Don’t let him drink it all at once, mutt, or he’ll throw up again,” Severus barked at Sirius before turning to Harry.  “This is the person who cast the cutting curse on you- don’t worry, he’s being expelled.”

“No, don’t do that,” Harry begged.  

“What?!” This time it was Draco and Ron speaking in unison.

“He tried to kill you!” The redhead protested, literally steaming (luckily, he’d shown Poppy the book that Dobby had given him explaining how elementals came into their power slowly and that the fire wasn’t harmful, and she hadn’t strapped him to a bed or shoved him in a tub of ice).

“I didn’t want to kill him- honest!” Elias swore, and Harry motioned to him, following his lips.

“See- he just made a mistake, and he looks like he feels really bad about it,” he argued, and Severus ran a hand through his hair and sighed.

“Fine,” he took a deep breath, clearly using every ounce of control he had not to hex the Hufflepuff.  “Since Harry has argued on your behalf, I will only give you detention for an entire year- but you step one more toe out of line, you little reprobate, and you will be out of this school before you can blink.”

“Yes sir,” the chastised teenager nodded and gulped.

“Good,” Severus growled.  “Now get out of my sight.”

“You were a little hard on him, Sev,” Harry told him as they watched Elias scamper away.

“Oh, for once he didn’t overreact at all,” Sirius took up (miraculously) for Severus, his hands still clenched into fists- it had taken a lot of effort for him not to do something to get himself thrown back into Azkaban.

“See- even the mu- Sirius… agrees with me,” Sev stated triumphantly, and Remus and all of Harry’s friends nodded in agreement.

“Alright, if you say so,” Harry was too tired to argue anymore, and he laid his head back down, spent.  “I’m just gonna…” he yawned, “take a nap for a bit.”

“Yes child- just rest now,” Severus said in that soft voice he only used for Harry (ironic, since he was the only one who couldn’t hear it) as he brushed the hair of his forehead and softly ran a cool flannel along his clammy skin, gently wiping off the beads of sweat that had gathered around the famous lightning scar.

____

Harry woke up three more times to throw up, but once he was well and truly asleep and his friends sent off to dinner despite their protestations, Severus left Sirius and Remus by Harry’s bed and went to one of the bathrooms in the hospital wing to shower away the tension sweat.  As he stripped his robes off, a flash of something light caught his attention in the mirror. Looking closer, he realised that it was in his hair- it was one of his hairs.  He had his first grey hair at thirty-two.  He sighed- Harry was going to cause him a premature death by worry.  And yet, he couldn’t bring himself to regret it- a life with Harry in it was far better than the bitter emptiness he had before, and he wouldn’t change it for anything.