THIRTY-ONE: Building a Mystery

The note pinned to Professor Snape’s door the next evening said the following:

Mister Potter:

I regret that I cannot continue to give you your lesson in Meditation Techniques this evening, due to circumstances beyond my control. Professor Remus Lupin has promised to stand in for me this evening. We shall meet tomorrow evening at the same time.

-Professor Severus Snape

Harry read the note twice through before folding it up and sticking it in his pocket. Well, at least ‘Meditation Techniques’ was better than ‘Remedial Potions’… but why Professor Lupin? He paused, slightly taken aback by his own reaction. There was nothing wrong with Professor Lupin; in point of fact, Professor Lupin was one of the best teachers, if not the best that Harry had ever had. Still, he reasoned, it was not plausible to imagine the werewolf as someone who practiced Occlumency, much less Obscura.

As Harry began to move down the corridor to the stairs, the very act of going to see Professor Lupin sent a shot of unexpected sourness to his stomach; and he realized that he wasn’t sure how his father’s old friend would receive him. Would Lupin’s conversation be laced with ‘Mister Potter’s and thoughtful pauses, or would he finally be easier with Harry again? Harry was beginning to wonder if the man would ever forgive him his mistake.

Worst of all, Harry had the unfortunate maturity to realize that he would behave in the same way, in the Professor’s place. If he saw a student cast an Unforgivable, especially one so insidious and perfidious as the Imperius Curse, he wouldn’t be so quick to trust them again, either.

The feeling grew worse as Harry climbed the stairs, the knot of uneasiness growing. He found himself choosing and discarding modes of behaviour. Would he be aloof and quite Slytherin, the way he had been last time? Would he be the Harry Lupin had first known, the young Gryffindor? Would he be quiet but kind, reflecting Lupin’s behaviour? Lupin was one of the only people he knew from his father’s generation, and one of the most emphatically good people he knew; which, Harry realized, was indubitably part of the reason the Professor was now so uncomfortable around him. And the reason Harry was determined to change Remus Lupin’s mind about him.

Making the rather Gryffindorian decision to wing it, he rapped smartly on the door to Professor Lupin’s classroom. “Just a moment!” sounded from behind the thickness of the closed oaken door. When it opened, it revealed a tousle-haired, sleepy-looking professor.

“Mister Potter?”

Harry nodded politely but cautiously and moved past him into the classroom. “Hello, Professor. How are you?”

Lupin eyed him. “Well, thank you.”

There was a small, awkward pause.

“Er… what can I do for you tonight?” the man enquired.

Harry blinked. “He didn’t tell you.”

Professor Lupin was, by now, looking quite confused. “Who didn’t tell me what?”

Harry handed him the scrap of parchment by way of an explanation, and the other man’s eyes lit up with recognition as he scanned Snape’s note. “He must’ve forgotten to inform me. Why don’t you have a seat?”

Harry did, sliding into the seat with more grace than he might have been able to manage only a year ago. He wasn’t certain if he’d finally stopped growing (please Merlin no!) or whether his actions were more carefully deliberate than usual. As he watched Lupin begin to gather up his unfinished work at the front of the room an scan the note several more times, he came to an abrupt decision.

“It’s altogether more likely he just didn’t want to give you the opportunity to say no,” Harry cut in, his tone matter-of-fact.

Professor Lupin looked up, genuinely startled. “Harry?”

Harry wanted to smile at the sound of his name, unadorned and familiar, but he had to finish what he’d started. “Because you’re still afraid. You’re afraid I’m going to become like him.”

For one, agonizing moment, the only expression that showed on his teacher’s face was shock. Then it broke into pain, which was worse. “Harry.” The word was infused with that pain. “I worry over you. Of course I do. But never – I don’t want you to ever believe, for even the breath of a moment–” He paused, gathering his thoughts, and in doing so, moved to seat himself at one of the student’s desks by Harry. “This is awkward for me,” he began again, more coherently.

Harry snorted. “Trust me, it’s awkward for all involved.”

“What is difficult for me,” he went on, unperturbed, “is that I’m not your mother or your father; but at the same time, I’m more than your teacher.” He frowned, for a moment, staring at the surface of the desk, looking frustrated and puzzled, before raising his gaze to meet Harry’s own again. “It’s hard to see exactly where my responsibilities lie.”

“You never had a problem before,” Harry muttered, eyes downcast.

Remus smiled warmly at him, and the knot in Harry’s stomach slowly began to loosen, the acid to dissolve away. “You were a child, then, Harry. It was easy to tell how involved I should be! Now you’re a teenager, and… and different. How much should I scold and smother you now?” The shadow of distress ghosted over the pale man’s features. “I won’t lie to you. The fact that you cast an Unforgivable is genuinely disturbing to me.”

“That makes two of us, then,” Harry said in a low voice.

“But you and Mister Malfoy seem to have formed a friendship of sorts, partially as a result,” Lupin went on, as though tempering his initial criticism. “If anything, you’ve been quite protective of him.”

Draco hadn’t been at the brunch or supper that was served on Sundays at Hogwarts, making Harry wonder just what sort of talking-to the other boy had received. “Yeah,” he murmured absently. “Draco’s all right, really.” But I’m beginning to wonder about myself. Now that Professor Lupin had voiced his support, Harry paradoxically was more concerned with his own recent actions. He’d lost his temper pretty badly at Draco – twice. He couldn’t lose it like that anymore – he just couldn’t.

Determination filled him. “Professor, do you really know any meditation techniques, or was Professor Snape just hoping we’d have this conversation?”

Remus Lupin laughed. “No, Harry, I really do, and I really mentioned them to him the other day. So, why don’t we get started? Can you start by summarizing everything Professor Snape has taught you?”

Harry nodded, and the lesson began.

Harry was still holding the note the next morning at breakfast on Monday; it sat tucked in a pocket within his robes as he shoveled porridge in.

“Where’s Malfoy?” Ron wondered, gazing at the empty spot at Slytherin. “I hope he didn’t get into too much trouble.”

This, from Ron, was like a declaration of eternal brotherhood, so Harry spared a moment between bites to grin at his best friend.

“Missus Malfoy looked none too pleased,” Hermione tacked on, poking at her own porridge with her spoon, creating rather artistic swirls and patterns of lump-on-lump. “Imagine, her only son in Muggle clothing and consorting with Harry Potter, of all people! It must’ve been very distressing.”

“Why are you worried about that ponce anyway?” Ron demanded.

Hermione blinked. “You just said more or less the same thing, Ron.”

“It’s different when it’s me!”

“Oh, now this is rich,” Hermione intoned dramatically. “How is it different when it’s you?”

“Because I’m a guy! Guys are allowed to worry about other guys.”

Harry shook his head and tried to hide his face. If he didn’t make eye contact, there was a possibility he would not become involved. And his friends wondered that he’d taken to hiding out on the Quidditch pitch before breakfast.

“How’d it go with Snape last night?” Hermione wondered sympathetically, ostensibly (and effectively) steering the conversation away from Malfoy.

“Oh, yeah,” Ron murmured, snagging a roll and biting into it. “I forgot that you and Snape had Occlumency.”

Harry sighed. “He was apparently otherwise occupied. I had Lupin instead.” He snorted.

“What’s the matter with Lupin, I’d like to know,” Ron countered.

“Nothing,” he said. “Lupin’s great.” Harry’s eyes traveled slowly up to the staff table, where Lupin was apparently sneaking enormous piles of toast onto Snape’s plate, magicking more whenever the sour Potions Professor managed to get rid of them all. Harry knew he’d hear about this later. “Er... it’s just that he doesn’t know much about... about what I need, is all. Snape’s very clear on that.”

“Professor Snape is quite clear on what everyone needs,” Hermione responded with uncharacteristic asperity.

“Shouting, pop quizzes and lots of homework,” Ron tacked on. “Oh, and shouting.”

“He’s rather brilliant, actually.”

“No one said he wasn’t,” Hermione replied. “I’ve seen some of his work and it really is superbly clever. It’s just a pity that so often the smart ones have little to no social skill.”

Ron eyed her silently, but thankfully he did not take that rather obvious bait. Harry counted his blessings and finished his breakfast in a hurry. He’d seen Hermione in a mood like this a handful of times before, and she would keep on making digging little comments at he and Ron until one of them gave her a good argument.

“If Professor Lupin knows so little about Occlumency, what did you talk about for three hours?” Hermione wanted to know.

Harry paused, trapped. “Well... some meditation techniques, really. Some of them might come in handy for that whole blanking-my-mind bit. Professor Lupin sounded exasperated when he heard that Snape called it that, actually. He called it ‘making the mind receptive and ready’. It isn’t blankness at all, it’s steadiness, and I can pick an image or feeling and focus on it instead of thinking of absolutely nothing.”

“It certainly sounds like you got a lot done,” Hermione replied.

Harry agreed with her. “Yes, certainly, Lupin’s excellent. Anyway, I’m off to Potions.”

Hermione, cheated of her confrontation, pouted, then turned to Ron. “What is it about you and Draco Malfoy anyway?” she demanded.

“What is it about me and Draco Malfoy?” Ron sputtered, turning pink. “Let’s see, his father’s a Death Eater–” Ron’s voice dissipated with distance as Harry exited the Great Hall, making his way towards the Potions classrooms. He half-expected Draco to be seated there already, one eyebrow raised and a ready smirk decorating his lips, but the Slytherin boy was not in his accustomed seat. Harry was the first one to arrive.

As the class slowly filled but Draco’s seat remained empty, Harry began to feel worry creep up on him. Where was Draco?

“Mister Potter, kindly join Miss Zabini and Miss Granger,” Snape ordered as he made his characteristic, dramatic entrance.

Harry’s eyes snapped to his professor’s. “Sir?”

“Do not make me repeat myself, Potter. And do not sulk, it is only until Mister Malfoy’s return. Am I to gather you have become so very attached that one Potions class without him is too much to bear? I did not think so,” he added as Harry scurried to join the two girls. “Today we will be discussing theory...”

Harry phased out, glancing every now and then at the empty space left at Draco’s chair.

Draco’s mother had taken him out of school.

Harry shook his head, unable to believe he hadn’t thought of this. It wasn’t like any action of his went unobserved; befriending Draco Malfoy had to be rather noticeable even if he didn’t happen to be the Boy Who Lived. They had been enemies, and now they were mostly getting along. Draco trusted and maybe even liked him, and he certainly liked Draco, although he wouldn’t trust the other boy any further than he could throw him.

Someone had noticed. Someone had reported.

And Draco’s mother had taken him out of school.

All right, so it was a temporary thing, Harry realized, given Snape’s comment. Draco would be back at least in time to take his finals... but it made him anxious. He realized that the room was oddly silent and decided it was because of the lack of Draco’s constant stream of commentary, which he had long since taken for granted. Even when taking notes, Draco mouthed the words he was copying down, sometimes elevating from silence to a whisper around the syllables. It had driven Harry practically barmy the first several days of his servitude, but by the end of that week he had gotten used to it.

Somewhere along the line he had gotten to like it – or at least miss it now it was gone. Hermione and Yolande’s quills scratched against their parchment nearly inaudibly; the spaces in Professor Snape’s droning voice, where Draco would have inserted a wry or thoughtful comment, now rang out as nearly painful silences.

When the class was over, Harry was worried enough to approach Professor Snape.

“Draco Malfoy’s business is his and his alone, Harry,” Snape replied, not unkindly – for him. “I noted that you did not so much as pick up your quill once throughout the entire lesson. Perhaps you feel yourself beyond this theory?”

“Not by choice, Professor. I was distracted,” Harry replied.

“Mister Potter, if I share anything with you besides a rather foolish penchant for helping those in need,” – here Harry’s eyebrows raised and Snape himself snorted in self-derision – “let it be this: there will always be a Dark Wizard.”

“There will always be a Dark Wizard, sir?”

“Yes, you fool, metaphorically. And literally, really. In my childhood, I heard horror stories of Grindlewald from my parents. You understand.”

Harry thought he might.

“There will also always be homework, and rooms to Evanesco, and normal, everyday relationships that need to be maintained.”

Harry felt himself chastened; he nodded slowly, making eye contact with Snape to show he understood. “I’ll pay more attention, sir. And, uhm, thanks.”

Snape straightened. “For?”

“For not patting me on the head and saying, ‘there, there’.”

“Would you ever suspect me of such a thing?” Snape demanded. His expression said that he would be utterly disgusted if Harry did not vehemently deny it.

“No,” Harry said. “Thank Merlin.” As Harry turned to go, a tall pile of toast appeared with a slight pop on Snape’s desk.

Snape jumped, then stared at the leaning tower with something approaching resignation.

“I – I guess you’ve done something nice for Professor Lupin, then?” Harry hazarded.

The Potions Professor ran a hand through his hair and nodded absently. “He seems determined I regret it,” he added in a hard voice.

“But why – why toast?”

“Haven’t you guessed? When I would not tell you what I wanted, this is what you did,” Snape spat, as though the entire toast debacle was officially Harry’s fault. “Lupin asked what I wanted in return for the favor I did him, and I must have given him a similar response.”

Harry considered. “Make something up.”

“Pardon?”

“Even if you don’t want something from him, you’d better make something up,” Harry repeated, eyeing the toast warily, almost expecting more to appear.

He was not disappointed. Snape backed slowly away from his desk as it suddenly exploded with toast – toast made of pumpernickel bread, bread infused with currants or raisins, wheat bread, seven-grain bread, italian bread, even toasted slabs of muffin. The ones Harry could see had marmalade smiley-faces on them.

“He’s trying to kill you with kindness, sir,” Harry said, making a noteworthy attempt not to laugh. He thought he did rather well with it coming across as a hacking cough.

“Fine!” Snape shouted as his desk creaked ominously. “Find out who signed the damned papers, then!”

The toast came to a quiet but dignified halt.

Snape’s dignity was rather harder to gather, but he managed somehow. “Tonight, Mister Potter. Revealeo. Do not forget.”

What Harry did not think he would ever forget was the expression on Snape’s face as he Evanesco’d the last of the toast crumbs off of his desk.

That night, when Harry arrived for his Occlumency session – or what he was calling his Occlumency session to Hermione and Ron – he found himself rather inexplicably anxious. The last time he was supposed to get a lesson from Snape, he ended up being instructed in the combined power of Calming Draught and Veritaserum fumes, the fact that his professor used Obscura himself, and the combustibility of free oxygen. Harry couldn’t say that his last session hadn’t been... educational... but it was hardly comfortable, and hardly what he would have expected. If anything, it was more unsettling than his lessons last year, when Snape had merely yelled at him and called up horrible memories... at least then, he had known what to anticipate...

Gingerly, he pushed open the door and slipped inside.

“Harry,” Severus said, looking up from the book on his desk. “Please write the following fifty times, using no magic: No matter how I am tortured by Draco Malfoy, I shall not be inattentive in Potions class.”

“Are you serious?” Harry said.

Snape raised an eyebrow, glaring at him through beetle-black eyes. “Do I jest?”

“No sir, and forgive me for ever implying you might,” Harry murmured resentfully. He took parchment from his bags and scribbled the words over and over until his mind was a hazy blur of repetitive exhaustion. It was odd, but Harry thought this was probably one of the better states of mind for Occlumency. He felt – surprisingly regimented, the same words standing in his mind over and over, cocooning him. It scarcely mattered whether they were true or not, they protected him, because they made up the forefront of his mind. After a moment, he explained this thought to Snape.

“Ah, I see that Lupin’s lesson was not completely useless, then,” was his reply. He marked his book by turning it up-side-down onto his desk. “Yes – it is called a mantra, and it helps. Though I suggest you not have the words ‘Draco’ or ‘Malfoy’ in yours.”

Harry smirked, shaking his head.

“Before we begin with actual instruction, there is a matter that we must discuss.”

The Gryffindor paused, the confident smile falling off of his features.

“It is indeed serious,” Snape said. “But no one has died. Yet.” His features set in their most familiar lines, those of dislike, even hatred. “There is a force that is toying with the both of us.”

Harry pulled a chair next to his Potions Professor’s desk. “You and me?” he wondered. “Why?”

“Perhaps before you descend into wild speculation, you will allow me several questions,” Snape replied.

It was not a request, but Harry nodded anyway.

“First: do you remember anything out-of-the-ordinary about your Potions O.W.L.?”

Harry flushed, because the first thing he remembered that was out of the ordinary was how much easier it had been without Snape around. “Uhm – not really, sir.”

“Think back, Potter. Anything that struck you as strange at the time may end up being important.”

Harry searched his memories more assiduously, combing them for signs of things that were odd or out of place. “I’m afraid it was a perfectly normal exam,” he said. “I found some of the questions difficult, but most of them were all right. I anticipated getting an Exceeds Expectations when I left.”

“And so you were surprised when you got the Outstanding, eh, Potter?”

He nodded again, more slowly. “This isn’t about my OWL, is it? You aren’t changing it back?”

Professor Snape eyed him coldly, waiting a cruel moment before replying. “No, Potter. You have the second-highest grade in the class, you know, as it stands.”

Harry hadn’t, but tried not to show that. He also tried to suppress an instinctive desire to know whether it was Draco or Hermione who was first.

“Any idea as to how you have soared into the upper echelons of academic prowess?”

Harry had to admit that he had none.

“When was the last time you were in the Ministry of Magic?”

“That’s cruel, Professor,” Harry returned.

“Nonetheless.”

Harry sighed. “During the rescue attempt for Sirius Black, where I nearly got myself, my friends and several Order members killed. And Black disappeared behind the Veil.” That still felt so odd, the feeling-but-not-feeling that was a hollowness left by Obscura. It was like a pulled tooth that he could not help but keep tonguing, only to recall all over again that there was no longer anything there.

Snape echoed Harry’s sigh. “You’re certain.”

“Well – yeah. That’s the sort of thing that’s hard to forget.”

“You didn’t go on a far more minor matter?”

Something sparked at the back of Harry’s memory, there then gone. “No,” he replied, more hesitantly. “At least – I don’t think so.”

“I spoke with a witch named Theodora the other day who insists she saw you,” Snape replied.

“What,” Harry said, “like Elvis? Am I being sighted now?”

“I know you are not completely without intellect,” Snape drawled, “despite all evidence to the contrary. Kindly put all the mysteries together for me and see if you can come up with some kind of conclusion.”

“The mysteries?” Harry echoed, although he was already listing them in his mind.

Snape vocalized them anyway. “Obscura. Your Potions grade. Your Potions knowledge, for that matter. Your slight alteration in personality, or perhaps temperament is the better term. Finally, the crowning glory: your Potions paper topic.”

Harry cast about for a connection.

“You,” he finally said.

“Brilliant,” Snape said. “Bravo. Five points to Gryffindor for stating the patentedly obvious.”

“And, so – what?” Harry demanded. “So when you were...” He coughed. “Teaching me Occlumency... you bled in, somehow?”

Snape froze.

“And me into you? You have been different lately... I think last year you would have cursed Professor Lupin for all he was doing, and terrorized Hermione for the thing with your hair, but you really... I mean, even when you were cleaning up from Lupin, you looked like you might – might laugh, any minute.”

Snape frowned in thought. “I must admit I hadn’t thought of that, but I am afraid that your supposition – besides being horrifying beyond belief – is also altogether besides the point.”

“Well? Doesn’t it fit?” Harry demanded.

“No,” Snape bluntly replied. “There are a handful of other things. Subtleties. Your magical ability to be in two places at once, according to the Ministry, caused me to write your home and inquire as to your whereabouts on that particular day.”

“And they told you I was mending the fence or painting something or weeding the garden,” Harry said, turning bright red at the thought of Professor Snape even getting an inkling of how his mother’s family treated him.

“On the contrary,” Snape said. He took a deep breath. “They informed me that Hogwarts had agreed to keep you over the summer, and that you were only with them the last few weeks of vacation.”

Harry swallowed past the lump in his throat. “T-they’re lying,” he said.

“We shall see,” the Potions Master replied grimly. “There is one more question I would like you to answer, Harry, and then we will see what can be done in the way of action. You resist Imperius, do you not?”

“Y-yeah,” Harry stammered, now thoroughly taken aback.

“Which means that, in order to be put under Imperius, you would have to agree. Do you know anyone for whom you would submit, if asked?”

Harry gaped, shaking his head. “No one. Well... I mean... maybe one person.”

“Am I right in guessing that person would be Albus Dumbledore?” Professor Snape did not wait for an answer. “Exactly,” he replied. “And since the same is true of me, I should think that our mystery is at least partially solved.

“Now,” he added, gesturing to the book and turning it to face Harry. “If you would read pages one-hundred and ten to one-hundred and sixteen, then we will get on with our lesson.”