Chapter Text
Severus Snape looked down at his son laying on the Hospital bed, he looked so pale in the white bed, his long black hair gone and the skin on his cheek pink where is had been regrown. Severus knew that if he pulled back the blanket similar pink skin would be dotted around the teenage body where Poppy had been forced to grow back badly damaged skin.
While he knew he should be in the Potions Lab testing what remained of the potion he found that he could not leave his son’s side. Poppy had assured him that Harry would recover and wake up in the morning but at that moment all he could be was a Father. He had even asked Albus to contact the Ministry and ask them to send someone out to perform the tests.
It had been a normal NEWT level class, all of his students working quietly on their project. He had been marking first year essays at the front while the sixth years had been completing research and brewing potions they had adapted. He had looked through all of the recipes that had been submitted to be checked for making and none of them should have exploded.
The Potion’s Master had no idea what had happened, all he had heard was his son shout for everyone to get down and then an explosion. His desk was warded against explosions so it was only seconds after the explosion that he was round the desk looking for his son.
He could see that most students had some of the potion on them and that it was eating through the protections on the robes they wore. “If you have any potion on your clothing get them off and then move to the area behind my desk,” He ordered, “Make sure that you help your classmates.”
Severus tried to stay calm as he realised that Harry was not one of the students that was starting to remove their robes and move away from the potion pooling around his lab. He moved quickly towards his son’s desk, gasping when he found Harry, while most students had only been splashed his son had been drenched in it and Harry hadn’t even been making a potion that day. He pulled on his gloves and picked his son up, placing him on the teacher’s desk, uncaring about the essays that could be ruined.
With a sense of urgency Severus started pulling his son’s clothes off, swearing under his breath as he got Harry’s shirt off and could see that potion had reached the youth’s skin.
“Draco a neutraliser,” he ordered the blonde who had moved to stand at the opposite side of the desk alongside Miss Granger. He wondered where Poppy was, the explosion would have set off an alarm that notified her that she was needed in the lab. “Miss Granger are you burned?”
“No Professor, I got my robes off in time.”
“Good, put on my spare gloves and as soon as Draco returns start spreading the potion onto the burns. We have to stop the potion before it goes to far.”
By the time Poppy had arrived Harry had been slathered in potion, naked except for his underwear and behind a barrier that Draco had erected. They had managed to stop the potion in time to stop internal damage but not before he had needed to have skin regrown.
Other members of the class had been fine with a burn potion once the site had been neutralised and they had returned to their towers. He didn’t know what had caused the explosion and when questioned none of the class had claimed the exploding cauldron, even when they had his oath that no revenge would be sought. Only half the class had been brewing and they had all sworn that their potions had been proceeding as normal.
That meant that only Harry could give them the answers they needed, had Harry been brewing an unknown potion in secret? Severus couldn’t understand why Harry would need to hide the brewing of a potion when Severus would allow him to brew anything he wanted if he was supervised.
Severus sat in the seat beside the bed that Poppy had placed there for him, took hold of his son’s hand and waited for the youth to wake up. Three hours later, Harry was still unconscious and Severus was dozing on the seat, voices roused him as they entered the hospital wing. He recognised Poppy and the Potion’s Mistress that had come from the Ministry, Severus had been surprised when he had been told that Mistress Shelton had been sent.
Mistress Shelton was a legend in the Potion industry, she had over 20 unique potions registered to her name and worked for the ministry on a part time basis as a special investigator. Working with or in place of an Auror on sensitive cases, especially those that involved Potions.
“Are you awake Master Snape?” Mistress Shelton asked, suddenly much closer than she had been.
Severus blinked and opened his eyes, slowly adjusting to the low level of light around Harry’s bed until he could see Poppy and Mistress Shelton stood at the end of Harry’s bed. “I am, you have news?”
“I do, I have spoken to a number of your NEWT class, a Miss Hermione Granger and Mr Draco Malfoy being most helpful in answering questions. They both told me that your son wasn’t brewing today and was instead writing up results from a previous lesson. I also matched up each of the cauldrons that were mid-brew to the appropriate student and they all matched their notes that they supplied. All of the other students also showed me the work they were completing, swearing that they were not also brewing.
“The cauldron that contained the potion that exploded was in the corner, it was in a standard student cauldron and I detected wards around it to hide it from view. It was a highly acidic potion that I believe was designed to explode during the lesson. Does your son always work there?”
Severus blinked as he tried to take in all of the information and coming to the quick conclusion that his son had been targeted, “Yes, only the 6th years use that classroom and they each have their own station where they work. Harry has worked in that spot since September, you think he was targeted?”
Mistress Shelton nodded her head, “I believe so, the location and the secretive nature of the entire thing. The potion is not difficult to brew but quite time consuming for it to be as concentrated as it is. Who has access to the 6th year NEWT lab?”
“The 6th NEWT class, myself, Poppy and the Headmaster could convince but that should be it. I would need to check them to be sure they had not been tampered with.” Severus didn’t think anyone in the NEWT class disliked Harry enough to try and kill him, he knew that his son didn’t get on with everyone but that was generally what teenagers were like. He couldn’t think of anyone who would want to hurt Harry enough to kill him, his son had only a small group of close friends, kept himself to himself and rarely even spoke to most people.
“You stay with your son, I will ask the Headmaster to join me to examining the wards.”
Severus nodded his thanks and watcher he leave before looking at Poppy. “How is he Poppy?”
“The same as last time Severus, he is recovering the new skin will be tender and he will be tired for some time, I believe he tried to shield his classmates from the potion. I do not want to think of what size the explosion would have been and how many students would still be here if he hadn’t tried to shield. I think he was just too late to be able to shield himself alongside his classmates,” She explained.
Severus nodded his head, that sounded just like his son, always trying to protect everyone else. “The rest of the class?”
“All comfortably back in their dorms, only a couple had burns where the splashes got through their robes or in Miss Patil’s case hit her on the neck.”
“Why would anyone try to hurt him Poppy?” Severus asked, his tone pleading for a reason.
She laid a hand on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze, “I don’t know Severus, he is such a sensible young man, always so polite. Try and get some sleep Severus, he will wake in the morning and hopefully we will know more.”
Severus nodded and smiled at her in thanks as the chair he was sitting in reclined and lifted his legs, cushioning charms making it comfy as a pillow and blanket floated over to him. He could still comfortably hold Harry’s hand and would be there for when his son woke.
XXX
Harry woke slowly, his hand was being held by a bigger one and he ached all over. He wasn’t in his own bed in the dorms or in his dad’s quarters and although he hadn’t had need to stay overnight at the hospital wing often he recognised the smell of the sanitising potions that he had helped his father brew for Madame Pomfrey.
He tried to sit up and gasped as his skin pulled in all sorts of weird places, falling back onto the pillows as he tried to remember what had happened and why his skin felt too tight. He had been in Potions, he had been writing up results from the experiment that he had completed in the previous lesson and was trying to work out what he was going to try next so that he could submit it to his dad for approval for the next lesson.
He had heard something weird, he had been standing to see what it was when there had been an explosion and he had been thrown backwards, the pain of the potion hitting his face almost instantaneous. Harry had hit something hard and then nothing, just the sense of pain then darkness and waking in the hospital wing.
“Can you hear me Harry?”
Harry let out a grunt, his throat dry and a straw appeared at his mouth.
“Small sips to begin with,” Poppy told him from the side that his hand wasn’t being held on.
It was hard to restrict himself to small sips when all he wanted to do was gulp it down, he felt so dry. It felt like he had barely had anything when the straw was removed from his mouth, he couldn’t help the whine of frustration.
“You can have some more soon Harry, I just want to make sure that you can keep it down without any complications.”
“Wh…ose po..tion?” He managed to ask, his voice quiet and croaky, it felt like their was glass in this throat.
“We don’t know yet,” Harry couldn’t help but turn to towards his dad’s voice, squeezing the hand holding his, “Could his throat be damaged? Could he have breathed in a gaseous form of the potion when it exploded?”
“Nothing showed up on the general scan but I wasn’t looking for that sort of damage. I will run some more checks, Harry how does your breathing feel? Any tightness or feeling like you can’t catch your breath?”
Harry concentrated and took a couple of deep breaths, trying to concentrate on his chest and finally shook his head, “Do..n’t th…ink so.”
“That is fine, hold still and relax while I cast a spell on your throat. It might feel weird but keep breathing calmly and deeply.”
Harry just nodded his head and held still as he felt her magic move across his throat, resisting the urge to flinch as the magic found the damaged area. The magic withdrew as quickly as it had appeared, “I apologise Harry for not finding the damage last night, thankfully the spell confirms it is just your throat and does not go down into you lungs. Severus allow him to continue taking small sips and I will set up the potion and nebuliser.”
The straw reappeared at his throat but this time it was pumpkin juice not water, it soothed his throat a little more than the plain water had and it was even harder to stick with small sips. He opened his eyes, the left one felt the fine but the right one was tight and everything was still blurry without his glasses but he recognised the blur by his bedside as his dad.
“I am glad you are alright Harry and as soon as you have had your potion we will talk about what happened. For now let me tell you that the rest of your classmates are ok, very few got the potion on them and in most cases it was only on clothes which were removed before damage was caused. Madame Pomfrey and I suspect that you managed to shield the rest of the class, but were unable to shield yourself. We don’t know who put the cauldron in the corner but it seems to have been hidden and designed to hurt people.”
Harry stared at his dad and realised what it was the man wasn’t saying, the potion had been designed to hurt him, someone at the very least wanted to hurt him if not something much more serious.
Madame Pomfrey returned before Severus could say anything else and the straw was removed again, “Harry I am going to put a mask over your mouth and nose, I need you to continue to take deep and even breaths so that the potion can heal the damage to your throat.”
Harry just nodded his head and let Madame Pomfrey place the mask over his mouth and nose, he felt the magic activate to keep it in place then came the weird feeling of breathing in the aerosolised potion. “5 full minutes Harry and then we can take it off, Severus while he is doing that you could rub ointment into all his new skin.”
Harry didn’t like the sound of all his new skin, although it did explain why his skin felt so tight and why he was so thirsty, both were side effects of growing new skin. His dad pulled the sheet down and Harry realised he was largely naked, an suddenly very glad his dad was doing it rather than Madame Pomfrey. Harry tried to concentrate on the tingling in his throat as the potion started to heal the damage rather than the large amount of areas that his rather was rubbing potion. It wasn’t until his father was helping him onto his side that Harry realised something was missing, he slowly lifted an arm until he could feel his hair or what was left of it.
“It will grow back, it will need a good cut but it did a good job of protecting your ears from the brunt of the potion.”
Harry grimaced but nodded his head in acceptance, it had taken years to grown it has long as his dad’s and he hated how out of control it was when it was short. He wondered if he could convince his dad that he needed a hair growth potion, he knew that they weren’t suitable for young children but he was nearly 17, surely he would be ok.
“There are pyjamas in the cupboard there Severus, get him dressed and sat up for some breakfast once the potion has finished,” Madame Pomfrey instructed and Harry helped as much as possible to get dressed again before he was sat up. His skin didn’t feel as tight and he didn’t even feel as thirsty any more, his throat felt less like he had swallowed glass and when his dad slid his glasses into place he could finally see the worried look on his dad’s face. He tried to smile at the man, hoping he could see the smile past the mask and managed to hold his thump up to tell his dad that he was ok.
“I’m your dad Harry, I will always worry about you but I am glad that you are feeling better.”
Madame Pomfrey cam back over to his bed and removed the mask before casting the spell again, this time it tingled but didn’t hurt like it had the first time, “Much better Harry, the House elves should be delivering breakfast any minute now, I would like you both to make sure that you eat enough and then the Headmaster and Mistress Shelton will be joining us to explain what they discovered last night.”
“Thank you Madame Pomfrey,” Harry managed to say, his throat feeling back to normal. He really wanted to know what the Headmaster and Mistress Shelton had found out but knew better than to disobey Madame Pomfrey in her Hospital wing.
XXX
Severus finished his breakfast and watched as Harry slowly ate his own, while he was sure that Harry was desperate to find out what had happened, they had eaten in silence. The young man looked better than he had the previous night, no longer as pale and the new skin no longer looking as pink. He was very annoyed that he hadn’t thought to check on Harry’s throat last night, what if it had swollen up and stopped his son from breathing in the night.
“I’m ok dad, honest I am and it wasn’t your fault,” it was the first words Harry had said to him since he had had the potion for his throat.
“I am in charge of the classroom, all incidents in there are my responsibility. I should have found the potion before it exploded,” Severus said, blaming himself again for the incident.
“That would have been impressive Master Snape, the wards set around the cauldron meant you could have been stood 10cm from it and not noticed. Someone has been planning this for a while, there were ward stones, small ones but actual goblin ward stones around the corner to hide from not only view but every sense.”
Severus looked over at the doorway and saw that Mistress Shelton and Albus had arrived.
“Ward stones?” Harry asked.
Mistress Shelton focused on his son and gave a small grin, “I am glad that you are awake Mr Potter-Snape and yes ward stones, I have sent what remains of them to the Goblins to see if they can identify who bought them. As I told your father last night, the potion itself is not complicated, most OWL graduates would be able to manage it but it is time consuming, to get to the strength that exploded in your class it would take 7weeks and 3 days.”
“Why did it explode then?” Harry asked, “We have 6 hours of potions a week, the rest of the time that lab is empty.”
“Well reasoned Mr Potter-Snape, it looks like a timed charm was placed on the cauldron so that it was explode during your lesson, again nothing that most OWL students wouldn’t know or be able to workout and cast. None of your classmates claim to have touched it yesterday but that does not mean that at some point in the past they did not create the potion and cast the charm. The Headmaster and I examined the wards, as far as we can tell they have not been changed since they were cast in September by Severus.”
Harry stared at them and then looked at Severus, “You think one of my classmates did it? You think one of them tried to kill me?”
Severus could hear the panic starting to increase in his son’s voice, it was a work of moments to remove the trays of food and gather Harry into his arms. “No-one will hurt you Harry, I will keep you safe.”
Harry gave a little whine and seemed to be trying to climb inside of Severus’ robes, the Potions Professor guessed it was the idea that one of his peers wanted to hurt him rather than a faceless stranger.
“Do you want a calming potion Harry?” Severus asked after a couple of minutes they needed to hear what happened from Harry’s point of view.
It took another minute or so but finally Harry spoke, “Yes please.”
Severus looked at Poppy and nodded as she handed over a small vial, “Thanks.” Harry drank the potion easily and within a minute or so the small shivers dissipated and finally the young man was sat beside Severus rather than trying to get into his robes. Severus didn’t remove his arm from around the slim shoulders, letting Harry draw strength from the closeness.
“Can you tell what you remember?” Mistress Shelton asked.
Harry took a deep breath, “I was writing up my results when I heard a strange noise, like a kettle left on the boil too long, I looked around but it didn’t look like anyone was struggling with their potions. The noise kept going and I realised it was coming from behind me. I am right in the corner and no-one works behind me but it was definitely coming from behind. I stood up and started to turn around to investigate when there was an explosion, I flew backwards towards my desk, I could feel the potion starting to burn me and I just wanted to keep everyone safe. I think I remember dad treating me with something before it went black and then I woke up here.” Harry’s delivery was almost monotonous, delivered without inflection and Severus wondered if maybe the dose of calming potion in combination with the other potions was a bit high. Severus looked over at Poppy and saw the concern on her face also, a calming potion should not have affected Harry’s behaviour that much.
Poppy moved forward and started casting on Harry before giving a nod and a small smile, “He is ok, a mild interaction between the calming potion and the throat potion, he will be fine once the calming potion has worn off. I will record it and report it to St.Mungos, they supplied the potion for his throat and didn’t not indicate that it would interact with any common potions.”
Severus nodded, he knew that theoretically it could just be Harry that was causing the reaction but it was better that the hospital knew so that it could be included in any instructions. While Severus brewed many potions for the Hospital Wing, Severus knew that Poppy got a small amount of rarer and much lesser used potions from St.Mungos. Mainly potions that the school would not normally use a whole batch of before the potion expired.
“Why would one of my classmates want to hurt me dad?” Harry’s voice was quite but still monotonous.
“I don’t know but we will find out, Albus did you get a report from the wards?” Severus asked the strangely quiet headmaster.
“No, I was only able to tell that no-one had broken them or done anything untoward to them.”
Severus nodded, “I will get a full report for them and we should be able to see if anyone has been accessing the lab at any unusual times. Harry why don’t lie down and see if you can a short nap and then I’ll see if Neville, Draco or Hermione can come and see you?”
“They wouldn’t hurt me, they’re my best friends.”
Severus nodded and hugged Harry again, “Yes they are, the very best, lie down for me Harry, Poppy will be here if you need anything.”
He helped his son lie down and tucked him in, he knew that Harry would still be tired from his ordeal and the potions would help him drift back off. He was reluctant to leave Harry, to leave his son, even as the young man drifted into a light sleep, his breathing deepening.
“I will monitor him closely Severus, go and see if you can find out who did this,” Poppy told him as she moved over to Harry’s bedside, “I will send a message to his friends that he will be up for visitors in 2 hours, long enough for a nap and the calming potion to wear off.”
Severus nodded, “Thank-you Poppy.” He followed Albus and Madame Shelton down to the dungeons, answering Madame Shelton’s questions about the different projects that his NEWT classes were completing. Both his 6th and 7th year classes were a very mixed bag from students who had scraped in and were being guided through simple independent studies to others like Draco and Harry who were creating some wonderful discoveries, he would have grouped Hermione with the boys but she was a little too reliant on books to make the intuitive leaps that the boys did.
“Very common among potions practitioners,” Madame Shelton agreed when he explained the problems that Hermione had, “We need both kinds to keep us going, I am sure that Miss Granger will be excellent at creating large batches of potions, we need more people able to do that than we do people to make new experimental potions.”
Severus nodded in agreement, “She is a very capable girl and will make progress but it is very logical in its discovery.”
The 6th year classroom was beside his normal classroom for teaching the lower years and opposite the classroom that the 7th year students used. Each room was capable of growing and shrinking to ensure that each student had a space to work that was dedicated to them, it meant that they could work on potions that took longer than a lesson and leave them in stasis with less chance of it being disturbed. When he had first started the classrooms had been used as they currently were but not warded only locked, it hadn’t taken some students long to realise that it was much easier to get into these room to get ingredients than his own ingredient cupboard.
“I cast the wards during the first class each September, everyone who is the classroom at the time will be able to access the room freely during lesson times and any extra time they had signed up that had been approved.”
“Do many of the students sign up for extra time?” Madame Shelton asked.
“Mainly in the 7th year class but some of the 6th years as deadlines approach,” Severus answered as he focused on the wards. He withdrew his wand and touched seven places on the door, a small amount of magic disrupted the charms that hid the warding stones. The seven stones were all light grey in colour, each magically etched with different runes that allowed him to reset the wards each year without complications. He had designed and made them himself before showing them to Professor Babbling to ensure that they would work as he designed.
He cast the first diagnosis and all it did was confirm Albus’ conclusion no-one had changed his wards but there was something not quite right, a more complex diagnosis confirmed that there was something not quite right but he still couldn’t see what it was. Another set of commands and a piece of parchment started spewing from the the door as the wards created a written copy of the ward alerts, every in and out from the room since September. “This will take a couple of minutes I imagine but should give us a full history of the wards since September.”
“A lot of data to go through,” Albus commented.
“Yes,” Severus confirmed, “But the only way to find out if someone has managed to access the lab that shouldn’t be there. I do not believe that anyone in the class would put their own life in risk, if Harry hadn’t managed to throw up that shield, all of us would be in the hospital wing.”
Mistress Shelton nodded in agreement, “Logical, if anything I think the perpetrator probably expected a larger explosion, some of the force of the charm was lost when it interacted with the ward that had hidden it.”
“Kill not injure then,” Severus confirmed as he clenched his fists.
Mistress Shelton nodded again, “Do you know who would want to harm him?”
Severus shook his head, “He is still a child, not even 17 yet, and most of the time he only speaks to his friends. He is a quiet child who enjoys studying, has small, close group of friends and plans to go into research, I would not be surprised if the department of Mysteries approached him to work in a research role. He has nothing that anyone could need bad enough to kill him.”
“What of his first family?”
“His father died when Harry was young, an incident in the Aurors that killed his father and his father’s partner, Harry’s godfather: Sirius Black. They got caught in an explosion while investigating a dealer of illegal charmed objects. The investigation concluded that some of the artefacts had a reaction to each other, both men died on the scene.
“James Potter was an only child and his parents died the previous year, he is set to inherit the Potter fortune and the Black fortune, while Sirius Black’s parents disowned him, Artucus Black named him as heir and Sirius Black named Harry as his heir. His grandmother on his father’s side was a Black so the Goblins think he should have enough Black blood for the family magic to accept him.”
“A lot or power and money for a young man to have, a good reason to try and kill him, what about his mother, she still lives?” Mistress Shelton asked.
“Yes, last time we heard from her she was living in Italy with her latest paramour. I married her when Harry was 9 and divorced her 4 years later, I adopted Harry on his 15th Birthday, he hasn’t seen in her person since that Birthday. She sends the odd letter and gift but rarely anything appropriate, too busy living her real life apparently to deal with the headache that comes with having a teenage boy.”
“What does she receive from the Potter trust?”
“A widow’s stipend and an allowance to help care for Harry.”
“Which by your own words she doesn’t do,” Mistress Shelton said bluntly, “Why allow the payments? Surely the Ministry and Gringotts recognises that you are his primary care giver.”
Severus nodded, “We have joint custody so the payment for his care from the Potter accounts is split between us, I have enough that it is easier just to leave her with the money. I would rather she had the money and had no contact with him than fought to have contact with him so that she could keep the money.”
It had been shock the month after the official adoption to realise that the money in his vault was a lot more than he had thought. Even though Harry had already been living with him for year when the adoption had been completed, there hadn’t been any allowance before then. He had received a Howler from Lily when she had realised that she hadn’t got her ‘full’ allowance for caring for Harry.
It had taken a trip to Gringotts to find out that the official adoption overwrote Lily’s claim that she was caring for Harry full time, the magic of the adoption automatically updating all the payments. It had taken some brief threats and pointing out that technically she hadn’t seen him in 6 months, even if he was at a Boarding school, and it wouldn’t take much to prove that she was doing none of the care for the child.
“Will that stop when he turns 17?”
Severus shook his head, “Until he finishes school and then the payment goes directly to Harry to support him until he finishes his chosen Mastery or he turns 25 and has full access to the Potter and Black accounts.”
“So the payments will stop regardless of what happens to him?”
“Yes, by July next month the payments will switch to Harry.” Severus didn’t tell Mistress Shelton that the payments were very generous and Harry spent most of the year at a Boarding school which was paid separately, that he had been putting most of the money into an account for Harry to have upon graduation. His son had been talking about doing some travelling before starting a Mastery and Severus thought it was an excellent use of the money.
“What would have happened if he had died yesterday?”
Severus took a deep breath, he didn’t even like thinking about his son passing before he did. “The Black family fortune and magic goes the next nearest heir which I believe at this point would be Draco Malfoy, his mother was a black, a cousin to Sirius Black and one of the few remaining with strong enough Black blood. The Potter family fortune would go to Lily Potter, she is the widow of the most recent Lord Potter, when Lily dies it would then go to the nearest blood heir.”
“Full access since the death of her husband?” She asked, Severus nodded, “And when Harry turns 17?”
“We have appointment the week before his birthday to file his will, he has plans to leave a trust for anyone in the future who has enough Potter magic to claim the family magic and the rest to various charities and St. Mungos. I am sure it will change once he marries and has children but Draco insisted that he had a Will written as soon as he had reached his majority.”
“So we have a suspect then, Lily Potter.”
Severus had to nod his head, the way she had laid it out led to only one conclusion and he wondered how long it had been on her mind that Harry’s mother could be a suspect. How she had let him be able to draw his own conclusions rather than just present it to him as a forgone conclusion, he had no doubt that Harry would have to be led in the same fashion. Despite everything that Lily had put him through, Harry still loved his mother and wished for her to be a mother that cared again.
Albus spoke for the first time since they had arrived at the labs, “I will leave you both to go through the ward records for the lab, I am going to check the ward matrix for Hogwarts and see if any old students have visited.”
Severus nodded and watched the man leave the dungeons, the wards Matrix for Hogwarts was very complicated, wards built upon wards, upon wards, a very complicated system that was strong but also had its loop holes, the biggest one being ex-students who unless they were individually removed from the wards still had access.
The ward report finished generating and hovered in front of him, rolled up into a neat scroll. Severus grabbed it and invited Mistress Shelton into the room, he guessed that Albus had overridden his wards to allow her in to investigate.
At his desk Severus unrolled the scroll and starting explain to Mistress Shelton what it meant, “This is September, I reset the wards and included myself, Madame Pomfrey, the Headteacher and the 12 students within the group. Each student is assigned a number this year they are 203 - 214, the door then registers each time that person comes into the room. These are their regular lessons and then this when they are coming in for extra time.”
“Why are they a different colour?”
“It shows that I have given permission for them to be in after hours, the ward system interacts with a calendar and will only let them in when they have approval.”
Mistress Shelton nodded and they worked their way through the records, most weeks up to mid November looked the same, the students came in for lessons along with him, he accessed a couple of other times a week for short periods and then in the last few weeks before Christmas 3 or 4 students accessed outside of hours, all approved. The spring term was similar, again with an increase of out of hour access towards the Easter holidays as the students tried to finish their trembly independent project. The summer term started as normal but then three weeks into the term there was something unexpected.
“The wards were rest again,” Severus said in confusion trying to make sense and he understood why the wards had seemed strange, he hadn’t reset them most recently.
“Yes they were, they still include yourself, Madame Pomfrey and the Headteacher, along with the students but another profile has been added. 214 but look at the permissions, they have the same access as 01 which I presume is you.”
Severus nodded, “Yes I am 01, Madame Pomfrey is 02 and the Headmaster 03. The reset is created in such a way that those three profiles are never reset and that Madame Pomfrey and the Headmaster don’t have to be present when it happens. It must have happened during a lesson to ensure that all students could continue to get into the lab.”
“Yes and they have accessed the lab regularly over the past couple of weeks, at least three times a week, each in the early hours of the morning. Plenty of uninterrupted time to set up yesterday’s incident, they were last in here yesterday morning for only a few minutes, just long enough to set up the delayed spell I would imagine. Where did you get the ward from?”
Severus was dreading the question, he knew where it was going to leave, “I created it, it started as my Rune’s 7th year project and I finished it in my second year of teaching. Lily helped me do it, not during 7th year but we started dating that summer, it was something we worked on together, she probably knows as much about the array as I do.”
“Even if she mainly accessed it during the night how could she have moved through the school to reset the wards?”
“When he was in school James Potter had an invisibility cloak, one of the best I have ever seen, it was entailed to the estate and while she couldn’t remove any extra funds she could use a limited amount of the entailed items.”
“You know her better than I, do you honestly think that she is capable of such careful planning to kill her own son?”
Severus sat down and put his head in his hands, his first instinct was ‘No’, the Lily he had known as a child, the Lily he had married would never hurt anyone especially her son but she wasn’t the Lily he had known at school or even the Lily he had thought he had married. She was the mother who had abandoned her son, who had belittled him and blamed him for not being more like his father, she was someone who was about to loose most of her monthly income and would have to get a job. Not that the widow’s allowance was anything to sneeze at but alone it would not support the lifestyle she was used to.
“Yes, I think with the right pressure she would, she would know it would have to be accident and she has the skills to do it.”
A hand came to rest on his shoulder, “It is never pleasant to think that loved ones, even ex-wife’s could hurt people that we love, that they should love.”
“This is all circumstantial at the moment, we need to speak to her.”
“I need to speak with her, you need to go back to your son. I will go and see if the Headmaster has discovered anything else then I will take an Auror and we will question her. I will let you know if anything comes up.”
Severus swallowed hard and nodded, he knew she was right as much as he would love to potion the truth out of her, he was a teacher not a Special Investigator and not an Auror. “I am licensed to supply potions for investigations and the courts if you need anything.”
Mistress Shelton laughed but nodded her head, “As am I but I will keep your offer in mind.”