Blood Magic by GatewayGirl
Summary: Blood magic was supposed to keep Harry safe, but his relatives are expendable. Blood magic was supposed to keep Harry looking like his adoptive father, but it's wearing off. Blood is a bond, but so is the memory of hate -- or love.
Categories: Parental Snape > Biological Father Snape > Severitus Challenge Main Characters: .Snape and Harry (required), Draco, Hermione, Remus
Snape Flavour: None
Genres: Action/Adventure, Drama
Media Type: None
Tags: Slytherin!Harry, Snape-meets-Dursleys
Takes Place: 6th summer
Warnings: Alcohol Use, Drug use, Neglect, Profanity, Romance/Het, Romance/Slash, Torture, Violence
Challenges: None
Series: Blood Magic Universe
Chapters: 84 Completed: Yes Word count: 337748 Read: 759711 Published: 14 Dec 2009 Updated: 14 Jan 2010
Mapping Enemy Territory by GatewayGirl

Saturday morning, Harry walked down to breakfast with Ron and Hermione. Hermione sat in the middle, so Ron could talk to Andrew.

"So," she said awkwardly, "how have you been?"

"Fine," Harry answered, reaching for the toast.

"I realized we don't talk much, anymore."

Harry rolled his eyes. "And why ever would that be?" he asked sarcastically.

"I ... I miss being friends," Hermione said.

Harry looked at her. "I've tried," he said seriously. "I really have. You mean a lot to me. But when I talk to you, all you do is interrogate me and scold." He hesitated. "I think perhaps we should pick it up later, when my life is ... more.... When I can...."

"May I sit here?" asked a small, high voice. Harry turned, smiling, to see Teresa.

"Go right ahead," he said. Teresa smiled broadly and settled next to him.

"Practice was great fun, yesterday," she said brightly. "I think I'm becoming a better Chaser."

"It's always good to work with new players," Harry agreed amiably. "Especially ones with a different experience level, whether they have more experience or less. You learn things, that way." He grinned. "I think you're really coming along. Iggy, too."

Teresa beamed. She babbled happily at him throughout the meal. Harry didn't mind. He remembered how much fun it was to have older friends -- and it kept him from the awkward conversation with Hermione. Teresa was very admiring, but at least it was over something he did -- Quidditch -- rather than who he was.

"And that maneuver you suggested was perfect!" Teresa said, almost bouncing with enthusiasm.

Harry glanced past her and found himself looking at Colin Creevey. Colin gave him an embarrassed grin and made a show of hiding his face. Harry choked trying not to laugh.

"Are you okay?" Teresa asked.

"Um, yeah. Just coughed when I should have been swallowing. What about that drill with Ginny? Was that helpful?"

Hermione, he noticed, had left.


Harry went down to see the wyverns off. It was a very warm day, for late September, and he opened his robes, in front.

To Harry's surprise, the first thing he saw when he rounded Hagrid's hut was Charlie Weasley. Before Harry could call over a greeting, a large, burly man further around the cage caught sight of him. "Hey!" he called. "Sorry, lad -- no student audience."

Charlie looked up. "That's Harry," he shouted back. "He can be here. Come here, Harry. Hagrid says you can talk to these beasties."

"Sort of. They seem to understand Parseltongue, but I can't understand them, at all." Harry walked up to Charlie. The wyverns were in a state, flapping and screeching. Occasionally one would fly up to the top of the aviary to dive down at the door, talons outstretched. "What are you doing here, anyway? Don't you work in Romania? I thought they were going to Russia."

"Yeah, but Harry, dragon people all know each other. And everyone knows my family knows Albus Dumbledore, so I was asked to come along. Professional courtesy." He frowned at the angry wyverns. "Reckon you can calm them down?"

"Tell me where you're taking them, and I'll try to describe it."

"Well, ultimately, they're going to the Ural Dragon Preserve. There are a few single females, there, and we're hoping they pick up one as their fourth -- you know wyverns always nest in groups of four, right?

Harry nodded. "One male, three females, each with particular child-rearing roles -- Hagrid has been teaching us, not just admiring them."

"Okay. Russia though, has quarantine, so before that, they'll be in an enclosure -- a lot larger and more natural than this, but still enclosed -- so they can observe them for three weeks. They'll be looking for scale rot, and such things, but also to be sure they're not too domesticated, and can hunt their own food, and such. When that's over, they'll be released through the roof, and herded by Hippogriff to the area the wyvern experts think they'll like best."

"Okay," Harry said. He turned to the cage and concentrated on seeing the wyverns as winged snakes. "This man has come to move you to your new home," he began.

Harry explained the procedure to the wyverns, and told them Charlie was a friend (at least, he tried to say "friend" -- he thought the word may actually have meant something more intimately familial) and could be trusted. The burly man stared with frozen terror as he listened to the sounds coming out of Harry's mouth. Eventually, the green female came over to have her face scratched again. At Charlie's request, Harry relayed that Charlie needed to cast a Sleep Charm on each of them for transport. After confirming with Charlie, Harry assured them they would be together in quarantine. ("'Course they will!" Charlie had answered. "They need to see how they work as a family.") Harry added that they weren't getting out of this cage any other way, and the wyverns finally decided to risk it. They came down, but flapped back up when Charlie pulled out his wand.

"Show them on me," Harry offered.

"What?"

"I'll tell them what you're doing, then you cast a Sleep Charm on me, then wake me up."

Charlie, after thinking the plan over, agreed. After seeing Harry fall, then wake unharmed, the wyverns cooperated. Charlie put them all under, then he and his companion went into the aviary.

"We'll be portkeying right out, now," Charlie said. "Tell Ron I said hello!"

A moment later, Harry was alone.

Or not, he thought, as a voice as his feet asked:

"Will the flying snakes return?"

Harry looked down. "No," he said. "Something else will come." He squatted to get closer to the adder. "Could I show you to a friend of mine?"

"Like before?"

"Yes."

"Is the one warm?"

"I don't know," Harry answered.

"If the one is not warm, I will sleep on you."

"Good. I'd like that."


**********

After some experimentation, Hermione, Ron, and Ginny discovered that mapping the Room of Requirement was a bit chancy. Ron, who asked in images, rather than words, managed to get something that looked like the room Harry had taken them to a few days earlier, but they were not sure it was really the same. They mapped that, then Hermione called up the room used by Dumbledore's Army. Ron and Ginny watch her go into the mapped room, but once she was inside it, she was visible in some places, but not others. The mapped area was not all in one patch. Next, they tried mapping the room used by Dumbledore's Army. When Hermione left it, then called it up again, she was visible in the room. However, when Ron called up what he considered to be the same room, Hermione was, again, only visible in some places, although more of them. Next, Ginny tried to call up the room, but could not.

"Why won't the door appear?" Hermione asked. "Ginny, get the D. A. room!"

Ginny shrugged. "I can't."

"Why not?"

"I don't know. I guess I don't believe I need it." Ginny pushed her hair back and smiled. "This is the Room of Requirement, you know, not the Room of Vague Interest."

"But we need another data point--"

"No. You need another data point. Personally, I think Harry will be fine if you just leave him alone."

"Then why are you helping?" Ron asked pointedly.

"Because I think you and Hermione need to be doing something, and maybe you'll harass him less if you feel you're taking some action."

Hermione couldn't decide whether this was offensive or sweet. While she was mulling it over, Ron sighed. "Let's try a smaller room." Hermione called up "Harry's Private Room" again, and she was visible in more than half of it from the mapped Dumbledore's Army training room.

"Let me do another quick sketch," Ginny said, joining her in Harry's room, "now that it's light outside."

Ron and Hermione agreed. Out of curiosity, Ron looked at the store of potions and found it again contained six green ones.

"You know, I'm less sure about this drug theory, after last night," Ron commented.

"Why?"

"Well, the fizzy potion wasn't anything special. I mean I didn't feel anything. I have no interest in taking it again."

"But that's the legitimate one, remember?"

"I guess."

Ron picked up one of the pink vials. "This stuff, on the other hand, was fun, but it seemed harmless." He frowned. "I suppose I should try this, too, to make certain the ones here are the same."

"Ron!" Hermione protested, but Ron already had one of the vials open. He couldn't find anything to blow bubbles with, so he held his thumb and first finger together and spilled a bit on the crack between them. A flush of quiet pleasure overtook him before he could try to blow a bubble, and that shifted to amused delight when he managed to blow one and pop it.

"Oooo," he said happily. "Same thing. It works on skin, but better in bubbles." He reached over to rub his fingers clean on Hermione, then thought better of it, and did it on his sister, instead. She giggled and swatted at him.

"Stop that!" Hermione snapped. She bit her lip. "Please?"

Ron laughed. "Wait a few minutes," he advised, but didn't manage to sound serious. He recapped the vial and put it back.


Fifteen minutes later, they left the mysterious room, and began to walk downstairs. They mapped the stairs leading from the Entrance Hall to the dungeons, then started mapping the dungeon corridors. At the first door, they stopped. Ron opened the door. An empty, square, room confronted them.

"Let's just mark it on the map," Hermione said, "and come back and do it later."

They followed that plan for the next six rooms that they encountered. Some were empty and others storerooms, but none had comfortable places to sit or lie down. The seventh door was locked.

"Should we do this one now?" Ron asked.

"What if there's someone inside it?" Hermione worried. She barely managed to stop Ginny from knocking.

"Maybe we should mark this one, as well, and come back during classes, when we know Snape is teaching, and most of the Slytherins are upstairs," Ron suggested, at a whisper.

Ginny got down on the floor, to see if she could see anything under the door. She reported that the room was dark, then tried poking her wand in. Wand light did not help, other than showing her that the first foot of floor was stone, like the hallway.

"It's a frequently used room, though," Hermione noted, as Ginny got to her feet. "You can see how the stone is worn in front of this door."

"Oy!" called a young, but confident voice from down the hall. A short Slytherin, possibly a third-year, came trotting towards them. He stopped several paces away. "What are you lot doing down here? Get away from Professor Snape's lab before I scream for my mates, and we turn you into Gryffindor paste."

Ron stepped forward angrily, but Hermione pulled him back.

"We're lost," Ginny said, gesturing at the map. "Which way to the stairs back to the Entrance Hall?"

The kid pointed. "That way, turn right, then go till you see them. Now go!"

They went.


**********

Harry glanced up to the staff table, during lunch, and was surprised to see his father silently studying Remus. Remus did not appear to have noticed. He was eating moodily, with much poking of his food, and seemed to have edged his chair closer to Professor Dumbledore's. Harry wondered if he was having problems with parents.

Severus slipped out of lunch early, and Harry followed a few minutes later.

"Hello," Severus said, when Harry entered his lab. "Are you ready to do some actual work?"

"Before that?" Harry began. He waited for the lift of eyebrows that indicated some curiosity before continuing. "We won't have many more warm days, like this. Would you like to meet the adder, before she starts sleeping?"

"You think I can walk with you in the gardens?"

Harry nodded. "If you wear my cloak. Then I'm just taking a stroll by myself. And when we're there, there are bushes between the good sitting places and the school. If we're careful about choosing a spot, you could take the hood down."


The adder was near where Harry had left her, sunning herself on a rock. Harry went a little past her, into a horseshoe of bushes open on the side of the Forbidden Forest, then called her over. The snake zipped through the thin, shaded grass, then reared up to flick her tongue rapidly through the air. She looked dangerously beautiful, with her soft brown back marked with dark zigzag warning, each point tipped in black.

"I can smell your nestmate, but I cannot see him. Can you see him?" the adder asked anxiously. "He is on that rock, or behind it."

"I can't see him at the moment," Harry assured her. "He is wearing something that keeps him from being seen." ...but will apparently not, he added to himself, hide me from Nagini.

A brief flicker of blue wandlight betrayed the casting of a spell towards the distant trees, then Snape's head appeared. Harry looked anew at the greasy lanks of hair, and wondered if Lucius had tsked and spelled it clean -- and perhaps scented, while he was at it.

The adder reared back at the sudden apparition, then settled lower again. "He has a body, but it cannot be seen?" she asked curiously.

"Right."

"Are you introducing me?" Severus asked, a bit testily.

"No -- she was wondering about not being able to see you," Harry said. "I don't think names translate, anyway." He gestured at the adder. "Father, here is the-snake-who-lives-near-where-the-wyverns-used-to-be." He sat down on a low rock and looked at the snake. "This man is very important to me."

"He cannot speak?"

"No, that's very rare." Harry had a sudden frightened thought. What if Voldemort spoke to all the local snakes? He could not see Voldemort, though, or even Nagini, getting this far onto Hogwarts grounds. "If you meet another human that does, or a snake bigger than the flying ones, do not mention me to them. The man is my enemy."

"I will not speak of you," the snake assured him. "I sleep soon, anyway," she added, as an afterthought.

She and Harry chatted for a few minutes. Harry translated some of it, including some amusing comments about the wyverns. After this, she smelled Snape a final time. "He smells a bit like you," she observed, "but more fragrant." Harry laughed so hard that he was obliged to translate, much to his embarrassment. The snake, when Harry had stopped moving, slid up the sleeve of his robes and settled contentedly in the warm darkness.

"Does that tickle?" Severus asked.

"Not really." Harry thought. "I can feel her contentment. It's pleasant."

"Ah."

For a few minutes, they were both silent. It felt like having summer back, Harry thought happily. Like the end of August, when things were safer -- why didn't we come outside, more?

"About the other night...." Severus said awkwardly. He managed a quick look at Harry, then focused on the distant forest, again. Absently, he sent another spell at it. "Thank you," he said.

Harry flushed with embarrassment and joy. "I didn't do anything," he said lightly.

Severus turned to him at that, scowling. "You know what you did," he said fiercely. He hesitated. "Dumbledore used to ramble on in meetings -- old crowd -- about what a 'loving child' you were. It always sounded so vapid. I never realized what balls that took."

Harry managed a timid nod of acceptance. It was his turn to look away, now. He watched thin clouds creeping in over the treetops and tried to breath normally.

"Who would you love, if you dared?" he asked.

"Besides you?" Severus asked.

Harry kept watching the clouds. "Do you love me?"

In the silence that followed, he watched one thin line of a herringbone cloud cross into the clear sky in front of the trees, and another move to take its place.

"Yes," Severus said flatly.

Harry's eyes closed involuntarily. He forced them open. "Good," he said. "And you can be brave too. Who else?"

There was another, even longer silence.

"I don't think anyone else -- no one still alive, anyway."

Harry managed to look at him, then. "Everyone should love more than one person," he said seriously, "and in more than one way."

"It is probably correct that one should," Severus allowed, "but I do not. Nor is it advisable, in my position." He paused. "Whom do you love, then?"

Harry bit his lip, thinking. "You," he said, "Ron and Hermione. Mrs. Weasley. Dumbledore in a sort of resentful way, and Remus, I think, in a tentative one. I'm not sure exactly who he is, sometimes, but that's the nature of the moon, isn't it? He was more contained, when I was younger. Now he shows me enough of himself to confuse me."

He dared a glance at Severus, to see if the mention of Remus had made him angry, but the floating head was staring at the forest, again, watching something very far away.

"Yes," he said absently. "There is more to Remus than he allows most people to see." The lines around his eyes hardened. "Docility is crucial to his survival."

"Do you still love him?" Harry asked frankly.

"I do not love animals," Severus answered harshly.

Harry flinched. He wondered if Severus understood how deep that cut went, and for how many people. He found himself trembling with anger and hurt, and his words came out fast with the effort of speaking evenly:

"Remus is no more an animal than my mother was, and you know it."

The snake woke from her doze and stirred sluggishly, making his sleeve wobble and distort. She poked her head out and hissed threateningly at the air in front of her, then, after a quick scan of the area, at Severus, who had turned angrily to answer, but now froze.

"I am safe," Harry assured her, stroking a finger down the flat top of her head and the pliant body behind it. "It is -- a fighting that happens without damage."

Such a lie, he thought. There is only no blood.

"Are you making her do that?" Severus asked, staring at the adder.

"No -- she just acts like that when I'm upset. I don't know how to prevent it. I told her I'm safe, though." Harry smiled. "You should have heard her when Hermione and Ron found me with Draco, and Draco called Hermione--" He reddened.

"I see," Severus said dryly. "Occlumency would do it, I suspect."

"In the middle of a conversation?"

"That is how I use it."

"Oh."

"Now, we will try this again," Severus said precisely. "You work on control, and I will tell you --" a familiar malice grew in his voice and face -- "that Remus is no more than an animal, and I am ashamed that I ever--" His voice weakened and stopped. Harry watched his eyes close and his jaw clench.

The snake started to stir, and Harry hurriedly pushed all thoughts away. There was only warmth, air....

"I think we should go in, now," Severus said flatly. "Make the experiment when next you have a natural occurrence. I can't do this."

The floating head moved up several feet, then vanished.

"I need to leave," Harry told the snake. "If I do not see you again this year, will you remember me in spring?"

"When you wake in the morning, do you remember the sunset?" the snake asked, amused, as she slithered from his sleeve to the rock.

"That is what it is like?"

"Almost."

"Good. I will see you later."


**********

Ron glanced around the common room around one more time, to make certain no one had come close to them. He needs to stop doing that, Hermione thought. It looks suspicious.

They were seated in a dark section of the room that was not near either the fire, or any windows. The closest other people were two fourth years who were playing chess out of casual listening distance.

"We need to map the lab," Hermione said. "We know he's been in there."

"No," Ron protested. "We know Malfoy said that he's been in there."

"True, but it's the only lead we've got." Hermione frowned. "Now, the problem with mapping Snape's lab is that the lab may contain Professor Snape."

"Who would dock Gryffindor hundreds of points and string us up by our thumbs."

"Figuratively speaking, yes."

"I don't trust it to stay figurative," Ron grumbled.

"So we need to map the lab when we know Professor Snape is busy," Hermione continued, with a warning glare.

"During classes?" Ron suggested.

"During dinner," Hermione concluded.

"Hermione!"

"Come on, Ron! You know where the kitchens are."

"Are you two certain you don't want to go out?" Ginny asked.

"Ginny! It was a disaster," Ron objected.

"Of course," Ginny said, rolling her eyes.

"No, really, Ginny, it was," Hermione agreed.

"So what do we do?" Ron asked in resignation. "Watch to make sure Snape goes to a meal, then leave and map the room?"

"Yes," Hermione agreed. She looked down at the map, searching for the "SSL" notation she had made at Snape's lab. "We'll start with blowing the smoke under the door. After that, I've been thinking that we--" she stopped suddenly. "Snape--!" Hermione squeaked, then clapped a hand over her mouth. "Oh my god!" she whispered.

"What?"

Hermione pointed to the map. Moving down the stairs to the dungeons were two dots: one labeled "Severus Snape" and one labeled "Harry Potter."

"Can we catch them?" Ginny asked.

"When Snape's with him?!" Ron asked. "Do you know how many points Gryffindor would lose?"

"We're allowed in the dungeons," Hermione observed huffily.

"Like that makes any difference to that greasy git!"

"Let's watch where he goes," Ginny suggested. "Then we'll know where you need to extend the map."

Harry and Professor Snape turned left off the first corridor and walked off the map. Hermione marked the spot where they had disappeared.

"Should we risk going down, again?" Ginny asked.

Hermione considered it. "I think so," she said. "As long as we don't meet the same Slytherin boy, we should be okay." She frowned at the map. "Let's watch for a bit, first, and see if they come back, or if Harry comes back by himself."


**********

Severus did not speak as they walked inside. Harry wondered what had made him stop in the middle of his nasty little speech about Remus. Embarrassment? Regret? Perhaps just weariness? I suppose it's exhausting to hate someone so much, Harry mused. He caught the thought, with its self-righteous detachment, and corrected himself. No. I don't suppose. I know very well it is.

Severus was no more talkative when they reached his rooms. He made tea, prepared a cup for himself, added milk, stared at it for a while, then pushed it aside and prepared some of the saffron milk drink. It wasn't until he was pushing a mug of the frothy stuff at Harry that he actually looked at him.

"I forgot to ask if you wanted any."

"Yes, please," Harry answered politely, restraining an amused smile. "I liked it the other time you made it."

"Good. I would not enjoy a second serving of something so sweet."

The drink seemed to calm Harry's father. He held it as if his hands were cold, though it had been warm, outside. Harry tasted his, then put it down.

"I was thinking about the problem with the Dark Mark," he advanced.

Severus frowned. "You will not go out on an assassination mission."

"For argument's sake, let's say I accept that. You still need to do something."

"Perhaps not. I am speculating. The situation may not be as bad as I fear. He may lose interest in torturing me, particularly if he is busy with other efforts. I plan to wait as long as possible before acting."

"Okay," Harry allowed, picking up the drink again, "but if not, I wonder if a Muggle prosthesis would be any good?" He took a sip. "I can see the spell not being able to get a hold on that."

"Prosthesis?"

"Artificial arm."

"Are the Muggle ones usable? As I understand it, Muggle medicine is quite primitive."

Harry shrugged. "I don't know. I could find out, though. Or, well, Hermione could find out."

"And why will you tell Hermione you are asking?" Severus said sharply. He sat back. "I was wondering, myself, if I could take off the skin, curse it to not grow back, and bond in a permanent bandage of erumpet hide, in such a way that the arm might still be useful. The Mark would probably get into it eventually, but it maintenance should not be frequent."

Harry shuddered. Maintenance was such a mild word for removing the skin from a dangerous amount of one's body. "That sounds very painful."

"Yes. I expect it would be. But it should be a constant, bearable, pain."

Severus swirled the liquid in his cup to pick up the stray froth at the edges. "Likewise, I have been considering the prophecy and your request for training."

"And?" Harry asked sharply.

"If you are the one who can destroy the Dark Lord, there must be something that makes you so. Have you ever attempted Farseeing or any other divination of the present, rather than the future?

"I thought Divination was all about the future."

"It is often taught that way. However, there is also divination to see things that are far away, or hidden. Ability in that is just as rare, perhaps rarer, then foreseeing. That is one thing that might help us."

"Well ... I'm pants at Divination."

"Your marks were not bad."

"Yeah, but Ron and I made everything up. Trelawny just wants you to predict something horrible and then she thinks it's brilliant."

"I see." Severus sneered at him. "Well, that would certainly be easier than studying."

"Easy? You try thinking up half a dozen new ways to die every week or so! Besides, if I actually had seen anything, and it wasn't horrible, she would have marked me down for it."

Severus snorted. "Trelawny is an old fraud," he agreed. "She has no more ability to recognize talent than she has to call forth her own. Dumbledore should learn to select teachers for ability rather than personal loyalty."

"Then where would you be?" Harry asked flippantly.

Severus frowned. "I am widely considered to be one of the three best masters of my subject in Britain."

"I expect that's true, but you can't teach," Harry shot back. He was surprised by his own vehemence. "Not kids, anyway," he amended after noticing the defensive tension gathering in Severus's face. "You said so, yourself, when you were talking about your value to different parties. There is no way you ought to be instructing eleven-year-old children!"

"Am I too frightening?" Severus asked mockingly.

"No, you are too capricious and sadistic, and you don't review, you don't cover basics, and you don't have any interest in what your students know, or how they learn best."

"Nonetheless, my students score higher than average on O.W.L.s," Severus said harshly, "so they must be learning somehow."

"I'll give you instilling motivation," Harry allowed. "It's not a pleasant motivation, but it worked for most of us."

Severus shrugged. "As long as you learn, it's effective."

"But I could have learned so much more!" Harry protested. He looked down at his near empty cup, and drained it. "Speaking of which, weren't we going to work in the lab, this afternoon?"

"Do you want to?"

Harry grinned. "I was hoping you'd let me play."

Severus looked amused. "Have anything in mind?"

"Could I try some variations on Hunter's Stealth? The adder could tell me where you were sitting by scent, and I'd like to test some on her."

"Are you planning to fool Mrs. Norris, or Nagini?"

"In time, I'm sure I'll have cause to do both."

Severus fixed him with a harsh, evaluating stare. "Promise me you will not attempt to kill the Dark Lord."

Harry hesitated a moment. "I promise I will not go looking for Voldemort to try to kill him, this term."

"That adds several qualifications."

"Because I will not promise what I will not do," Harry answered seriously. "If I encounter Tom, by chance or his design, I will do whatever seems best."

"Accepted," Severus said shortly. "You may 'play,' as you put it. Oh, and Harry?"

"Hm?"

"This time, take notes."


**********

Hermione, Ron, and Ginny, with more caution than they had used that morning, returned to the dungeons. They found Harry's point of departure from the map was a corridor which turned a corner, passed two doors, and joined up with the next corridor just past Snape's private potions lab. Hermione noticed that there was now light showing under the lab door. They went back to the L-shaped corridor and mapped it quickly. When Professor Snape did not materialize at the smell, they cautiously tried both doors. One was locked. The other opened onto a plain room full of old Potions equipment. They mapped that one, and moved on to continue with the other corridor past the Potions lab.


**********

Harry remembered the time and effort involved in replicating his bubble stuff, and started a parchment for each of his two cauldrons. On each, he wrote the steps he planned to take, with space to note how each step progressed. Then he moved to preparing components.

"So," he asked, after checking to see that Severus was also at an easy stage of his work, "what did you want me to divine?"

"I was hoping that you, with your connection to the Dark Lord, could divine a weakness in his protections against death."

Harry was, for a moment, speechless. He finally looked down at his hands, resumed mincing leaves of Diana's Treasure, and said:

"I thought I was supposed to repress the link to the Dark Lord."

"The mind link, yes. You are vulnerable to him. But you are still connected to him -- by the prophecy, by your blood, by your scar. I hoped -- hope -- that within the protection of divinatory tools, you might be able to discover things about him that have eluded me as a spy."

"What do you know about his protections?"

"Not much. I found, from Lucius, that he is guarded against the Killing Curse, and lack of breath. It is apparent that many actions which should be fatal revert him to a more basic body. I would guess that he cannot be destroyed by killing the body he is in." Severus looked embarrassed. "None of us know much about this."

"Who knows some?"

"Lucius did. I suspect Rabastan does, as well. Wormtail probably knows more than the rest of us put together.

"Wormtail? And you can't get it out of him?"

"Even if he had the intelligence to understand what he has seen and heard, it would not help. He is too terrified of his master to ever betray him."

Harry straightened up. "Pettigrew follows the lead of the most powerful present, right? You and James both said that."

"True, within reason. But he does understand retribution. Getting him away from the Dark Lord will not help. He understands that I am less powerful."

"But if we get him away from the Dark Lord, and I come on like serious bad news, and he knows the prophesy, he might betray him to me."

For a moment, Severus just hammered at some hard substance on the table in front of him. After it shattered, he spoke. "Just what I need," he commented dryly. "You learning how to posture."


It was several hours later, with three vials of new potions tucked in next to his wand, that Harry emerged from the dungeons. The Entrance Hall was bustling with people coming in, or downstairs, or upstairs, for dinner. Harry slipped out the door while it was open, went behind the bushes at the base of the stairs, and took off his cloak and stashed it. When there was no one in sight, he emerged again, and entered the castle visible.

Hermione, Ron, and Ginny were waiting for him, and from the looks on their faces, Harry was certain they had noticed his absence, which meant he should probably pretend to be on the Squib drug. Inwardly, he sighed.

Hermione marched over to him. Ron, behind her, shifted to avoid meeting Harry's eyes. Harry managed a lazy smile for Hermione.

"Hi, girl," he said absently.

"Just two days, this time?" she asked pointedly, her voice tight with anger -- or perhaps, he amended, looking again, worry. "Not lasting as long as you used to?"

Harry opened his mouth to say something bland or evasive, and nothing came. Hermione looked ready to scream, or perhaps cry, and the thoughts of this is just what she's supposed to think and this was my idea didn't help at all. He looked desperately over at Ron, but Ron was stubbornly looking down, his anxiety displayed clearly by a nervous chewing of his lip.

"Well?" Hermione pushed.

Harry looked at her and shook his head. He couldn't manage a smile. It just wouldn't come. "I can't do this anymore," he whispered.

"Can't do what, anymore?" Hermione's voice was sharp. She pushed forward, seeing a weakening, and Harry spun and ran.

It was clear, almost immediately, that he would not be able to lose them and hide. Ron was taller and faster than he was, and Ginny, with them, was faster yet. Harry turned a corner into an empty section of hallway and pulled out his wand. Quickly he cast a Reflective Shield Charm on the space in front of him, then followed it with a Stupefaction Hex. The hex bounced off the shield and hit him. The last thing he heard was Ginny and Ron rounding the corner.


Harry stirred, confused to feel he was lying someplace soft, and opened his eyes. Remus was looking down at him.

"Hi there!" he said cheerily. "I heard you did a fancy bit of dueling with yourself."

Everything clicked into place. Harry had stunned himself to avoid playing wasted at Hermione, and was now in the hospital wing. He wondered why they hadn't revived him in the hallway.

"Anyone else here?" he asked nervously.

Remus shook his head. "I made Ron, Hermione, and Ginny leave, and a certain other party doesn't dare be here. He asked me to check on you for him, if you can believe that."

Harry blinked. "Really? That's almost worth the headache."

"Speaking of headaches, Harry," Remus said pointedly, "don't try that stunt again on a stone floor. You were bleeding pretty badly when they brought you up here."

So that was why he hadn't been revived in the corridor. "Oh hell! This will be all over school."

"Not quite. Hermione told everyone that you had fallen while running from them, which the people who had seen you leave the Entrance Hall found quite believable. When you were up here, and Madame Pomfrey was busy, she and Ron and Ginny told me that you had cast a reflection shield, then used it to hex yourself, and she ended the shield spell before anyone else was in sight."

"Oh."

"Now," Remus said severely, "why would you do that?"

Harry sighed. His depression lightened as it occurred to him that Remus was the one person that he could tell everything. After a careful look around to confirm that they were alone, he launched in to the tale of Ron and Hermione's insistence on knowing where he went, his fears they would find out about Severus, his decision to fake being addicted to something, and how that plot was coming along more quickly and effectively than he had really wanted it to. Remus spent much of the explanation covering his face or shaking his head. He would occasionally burst out laughing, then apologize.

"Poor lamb. Caught in your own web?"

"It's not funny," Harry said sullenly. He grinned. "Okay. Yes, I am. Now tell me, wolf, how do I get out of this?" He meant "wolf" as a light tease, and was surprised when Remus flinched.

"Remus?"

"Why are you asking a wolf?" Remus said bitterly.

"Oh, don't be like that," Harry pleaded. "I just think it's funny when you call me 'lamb.' I don't mind or anything -- just you could make that sound so threatening...." Harry bit his lip. "Dear wolf?" he tried.

Remus smiled. "Oh, all right. I'm so used to that being an insult...."

"I'll stick to Remus, or Moony, or Professor Lupin, then. Anyhow -- do you have any suggestions?"

Remus thought for a bit.

"How about this," he said finally, "I'll talk to them." He shook his head. "They were frantically worried when they left here, and Hermione did tell me and Madame Pomfrey, though no one else, that she thought you were under the influence of something-- Don't snarl, Harry. She told Pomfrey because it might be medically important, and she told me because she wanted help."

"Talk, fine, but what are you going to tell them?"

"I'll tell them that you and I spoke, and the details of that discussion are confidential, but for the moment, I believe they should not mention the incident, or any of the other things you have been fighting about, and just try to be good friends; and that if any thing further happens, they should come tell me about it, and I will investigate. Do you think that will help?"

"Loads," Harry said with relief. "They both trust you, probably more than any adult here, for something like that. I mean, Dumbledore's great, but he ignores a lot from me, and he has the whole school to look after."

"That's what we'll do, then. Let me call Madam Pomfrey -- she needs to check on you, and evaluate whether or not you can have dinner."


**********

Hermione rubbed at her temples as she tried to listen to what Ron was saying. She couldn't get the picture out of her head. She had turned the corner, a second behind Ron and Ginny, just in time to see Harry hit the stone floor with a sickening crack that sounded like it must have split his head in two. They had slowed the frightening flow of blood with a hurried spell, and levitated him to the hospital wing at a run. Hermione, almost automatically, had cast Finite Incantantum on the shimmering shield behind him, and, when other people had caught them up, quickly told them that Harry had fallen in his flight. She had said the same to Dumbledore and Madam Pomfrey, but when Professor Lupin appeared, she had collapsed on him, sobbing, and whispered the truth, including why Harry had run from her. She told Madam Pomfrey only that Harry might have been under the influence of something when he ran. Professor Lupin had taken her, Ron, and Ginny aside for more details, then sent them away, as soon as Madam Pomfrey assured them Harry would be fine. Hermione suspected that Harry might not be fine had he been left to Muggle medicine.

"Ron, that's enough!" Ginny snapped. "I saw him, too. I'm convinced there is a problem, whatever it may be. Now what do we do?"

Hermione leapt eagerly at the distraction. Talking about the map would keep her brain occupied. When Ron said they should start mapping the locked rooms by pushing smoke under the doors, as they had in previous cases, she joined in.

"I've been thinking about that. We may not have a rat animagus, but we could get a rat and control it."

"I don't know any animal control spells," Ron objected.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "That's what the library is for."

"But it couldn't communicate."

"You know how there are spells where you can enchant a thing --- a mirror, or a picture, or something like that -- to display somewhere else what it 'sees?'. I was wondering if you could do that to an animal's eyes. If you can, then put the animal under control...."

Ron and Ginny looked impressed.

"Brilliant," Ginny said.

"Does it have to be a rat?" Ron protested. "I'm not sure I could take another rat."

"A mouse wouldn't be strong enough," Hermione noted.

"I suppose."


The portrait hole swung open, and Hermione, automatically, turned to look. It was Harry, looking entirely too cheerful. She thought he saw them, but he swung over to some seats near the fire, where Teresa and Iggy were sitting, and launched into telling them something. Zoë drifted over from nearby, and Hermione could see Harry assuring her that he was fine. He bent down his head and she stroked a hand over the back of it, then said something that made him laugh.

Ron sighed. "Reckon we need to go to him?"

"No interrogations in front of an audience," Ginny warned.

"Of course not," Hermione agreed.


"So Professor Snape is covered in squashed clusters of red currants," Harry was saying when they arrived, "and has Peeves imprisoned in Mrs. Norris, who's screaming and spitting up a storm, and Professor Dumbledore comes out to see what the ruckus is and says, "Why Severus! You've finally added a bit of color to your wardrobe."

He was at the center of a small crowd, now. Hermione met Harry's eyes through the ensuing laughter, and motioned towards the wall. Harry held the look for a moment, then minutely shook his head.

"Pity he made him release Peeves, though," he said idly. "Oh! I saw the wyverns off this morning. Want details?"

Hermione thought it most unlike Harry to be entertaining this way, but he launched readily into relating the departure of the wyverns, complete with snatches of parseltongue that made members of his audience shiver. Zoë was hanging on his every word, and, in parts, on his arm. Hermione wanted to hit her. Fifteen minutes later, Harry was still surrounded by people, most of them younger, and he had not met Hermione's eyes a second time.

"I'm bloody starving," Harry said, finally. "Pomfrey wouldn't feed me a thing. Said that would teach me not to run in the halls." His audience laughed. "What do people want from the kitchens? Besides butterbeer?"

"Puddings," Ron volunteered. "I'll come with you."

Harry smiled and shook his head. "You know all about the kitchens, Ron. And you take too long! I should take one of the young ones, and pass on the knowledge of snitching food." His eyes scanned the crowd around him and came to rest on Teresa. "What about you, Teresa?" He grinned. "You can be my protegé!"

Teresa, Hermione noted, glowed.

The End.
End Notes:
Next: More Severus, Lupin, & Draco....


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