If Severus had known the boy had missed dinner, he would have hunted him down and demanded an explanation, at least. However, Severus himself had not been in the Great Hall. He had taken dinner in his quarters in order to catch up on the damnable amount of work that had gone by the wayside while he was attending to the various other distractions this term had. He was late going over his seventh year’s research proposals and wanted to hand them back, preferably before the students died of old age.

Consequently, it was not until Minerva appeared at his door, a few minutes after curfew, that he discovered the boy was missing.

A knock at his door at this time of night was never a good sign. He steeled himself before opening the door.

Minerva stood there, a frown on her face. She was still dressed, but her hair hung down her back in a long plait, as if she’d been interrupted in the act of preparing for bed. “Severus, I’m sorry to bother you this time of night, but I wonder if you’ve seen Harry?”

“Not since potion’s class,” replied Severus coolly. “Have you checked the hospital wing? Poppy was supposed to have seen the boy this afternoon. Perhaps she kept him.” It was unlikely that Poppy would have done so, without at least informing Minerva, but Severus knew she was just as overwhelmed with catch-up work as the rest of them.

“I’ve already spoken to her. She sent him away before dinner and no one has seen him since.”

Severus’ jaw clenched. “Have you spoken to his friends?.”

Minerva nodded, looking a little helpless. “I was hoping, perhaps, he was serving a late detention with you.”

“No,” said Severus slowly. “But he may find himself serving a great many from now on,” he added darkly. His stomach knotted. Damn the boy. “What did Mr. Weasley and Miss Granger say?”

“They haven’t seen him since class ended. In fact, it was Miss Granger who came to tell me Harry was missing.”

“Do you mean to tell me that Potter’s been missing for almost six hours?” Severus asked in a low voice.

Minerva nodded, her lips pressed into a worried line.

Severus took a long breath in. “And no one thought to inform me of this?” he demanded harshly. He had been the boy’s guardian for less than six weeks and already the infernal child had gone missing. “Are you simply trying to hand him over to Black? Do you want another death on your conscience?” He didn’t trouble to keep his voice down.

Minerva’s face whitened with equal parts fury and pain. “I only just found out myself,” she snapped. “I dined with the headmaster.” Her hand tightened on her wand.

So much for his plans of a quiet evening catching up with work. “I wish to speak with Granger and Weasley,” Severus growled, stalking out of his door and down the corridor.

Minerva caught up with his long strides. “They’re waiting in the headmaster’s office.”

At least the old cat had done that much right.

Very shortly, they stood again in the headmaster’s office. Present for this meeting was Granger, the Weasley twins, Ron Weasley and the youngest Weasley. Dumbledore’s idea no doubt. The presence of the twins made sense; Severus had long suspected they had a great deal of uncommon knowledge about the castle. And the Weasley girl had some idea of the tunnels under the school, owing to her activities last year while possessed by the Dark Lord.

Severus sincerely hoped they didn’t have to recover the boy’s body from one of those tunnels. One horrible scenario after another flashed through his mind. Lily’s eyes looking from Potter’s face, as cold and dead as Longbottom’s eyes had been, floated to the surface of Severus’ unpleasant speculations.

Anxiety simmered in his stomach; it would not take much for it to boil into panic. Severus took a few seconds to, very deliberately, clear his mind of emotion. Panic would serve no one.

“Have you thought of anywhere else Mr. Potter might have gone?” Dumbledore was asking the children.

“I’ve seen him on the astronomy tower,” Miss Weasley told Dumbledore, very quietly.

“What the devil were you doing there?” demanded Severus.

Miss Weasley jumped. “I--I just go up there for a bit of quiet sometimes,” she said, her voice somewhere between frightened and terrified.

“Where else do you suggest we look?” asked Minerva.

Granger and the Weasleys glanced at each other guiltily until Severus snapped, “Out with it, then.”

“Harry’s been sort of... disappearing... in the afternoons, after class,” ventured Granger quietly.

“Yeah,” said one of the Weasley twins. “He’s late to Quidditch practice a lot.”

“Do you know where he goes?” Dumbledore asked gently.

All of them shook their heads. “Wherever he goes, it’s out on the grounds. Across the lake. I’ve seen him coming back by the green houses,” said Granger. “We thought maybe he was going down to Hagrid’s, but when we asked, Hagrid says he hasn’t seen Harry out there.”

“He’s been a bit funny since...” the youngest Weasley boy trailed off, looking at Severus. He seemed to lose his nerve. “Well, since the whole thing with Neville.” He dropped his eyes to the floor. “But we all reckoned that everyone’s pretty messed up about it.”

Miss Weasley gave a little sob. Severus fished around in his pocket for a clean handkerchief. As the students in his house soon found out, he loathed sniveling students wiping their noses on their sleeves. He held it out in front of her. She looked at it as if it might bite her, but took it after a moment.

“You would say Mr. Potter’s been behaving oddly, then?” asked Severus.

All the children nodded. Severus looked up to catch the headmaster and McGonagall exchanging an uncomfortable glance. They’d all known that Potter and several other of the students were behaving oddly, but were at a bit of a loss to know what to do about it.  Mr. Weasley’s assessment of everyone being “pretty messed up” was quite correct. Poppy had asked Severus to brew an extra batch of calming draft because so many children were coming to her with nightmares.

“Is there anything else you can tell us?” asked Dumbledore of the children in his best grandfatherly manner.

They all shook their heads.

Dumbledore nodded. “Off to bed, then. We’ll come find you if anything changes.”

Severus doubted the children would actually make it to their beds, but at least they’d be out from underfoot. They trooped down the stairs.

 “I’ll go check the tower, shall I?” Minerva said when the students had gone and they’d heard the door close at the bottom of the stairs.

Dumbledore nodded. “I have asked some of the ghosts to check the majority of the castle. I’d rather keep this quiet.” He paused. “I wonder if you wouldn’t mind checking the grounds yourself, Severus?”

Severus nodded in agreement. “Have you checked to see whether Potter’s damned cloak is gone, as well?” he asked.

Dumbledore nodded. “I asked the house elves to have a look. It’s still in his trunk.”

It might be less worrying if the cloak was gone; at least they would know Potter had disappeared of his own volition.

Which reminded him, if Potter was still alive at the end of this evening, Severus was going to confiscate that bloody thing until Potter was no longer his responsibility. After a moment of thought, Severus said, “If the boy is not found in the next hour, I will, of course, bring in the aurors.”

Dumbledore sighed with resignation. “That is your prerogative.”

“Send a Patronus if someone finds him,” Severus said over his shoulder as he strode from the room.

The evening was cold and Severus hoped Potter had taken his new cloak. It had a warming charm and an impervious charm, so even if Potter was unconscious, he wouldn’t be vulnerable to dying of hypothermia. Assuming Black didn’t just kill the boy outright.

 By the time Severus reached the greenhouses, he had been over almost every grim outcome possible. Potter dead, Potter gravely injured and dying, Potter gravely injured and living, Potter cruciated into madness, Potter kidnapped and used in some dark rite to resurrect the Dark Lord...

Severus felt sick.

He lit his wand as brightly as it would light, and then, on reflection, incanted a spell to make blood droplets fluoresce in the light (a little spell he’d invented, after getting the idea from a television show).

A movement ahead of him. The almost full moon silhouetting a slight, cloaked messy haired figure.

"Potter!" Severus gasped. "Where the devil have you been, boy?" He quickened his pace and closed in on the child. In the darkness, Severus couldn’t see if the child was injured.

 Potter threw a hand up between them.  He fell back a step, as though Severus was threatening to slap him  "Please, I just fell asleep and..."

"You fell asleep?" Severus grabbed Potter’s shoulder. Potter did indeed look unmarked. Like a catalyst that caused a potion to turn it from base to acid, relief turned all of Severus’ fear to righteous anger, "Are you mad? I was just about to ask the Aurors to look for you." He shook the boy’s shoulder. "What the hell were you..."

Severus never finished. Something huge slammed into him, throwing him to the ground. An animal was at his throat, one paw on his wand hand, one on his chest, like something out of his nightmares. The nightmares he’d lived through since James Potter had saved his life, that long ago night.

He got his free hand onto the beasts jaw, keeping it from him. Desperately, he hoped the boy would have enough sense to run for the castle. Clearly too much to hope for; the boy had grabbed the great brute around the neck and was yelling nonsensically at it.

"Potter! What the hell are you doing? Get away before the damned thing eats you!" shouted Severus, fighting like a mad thing.

"Snuffles! No! Bad dog!"

Severus could hear the boy’s words now.

"Bloody dog! You're making it worse!"

The dog backed off with a sudden whine. Severus saw it turn to the boy—give him a lick on the cheek—then turn to growl again at Severus.

Not moving at all, Severus asked, "Do you know this animal?" He chanced a looked at the pair; they were standing closely together, in mutual defense. Judging it safe enough, he slowly stood up, keeping his wand on the creature.

The boy, his arms still around the dog's neck, said, "Yes, sir. He's never acted like this before. I think he must be someone's familiar. Please, sir…" Suddenly the boy sounded stricken and tears washed down his cheeks, shining in the wand light. "I've been feeding him and I guess he's gotten fond of me or something. He probably thought he was helping me. I know he's probably a wizard's familiar. We can find out whose and send him back there. He just... he didn't know who you were. He's not dangerous... we can take him to Hagrid's. Please, please... don't…" The boy broke off.

Oh, Lily, thought Severus, he’s so like you. Through this whole horrible term, nothing moved the child to tears, until he feared for an animal who’d obviously chosen this boy as his wizard.

It was not at all unusual for a familiar to attack when they thought their wizard was in danger, but the child probably assumed that the dog would be treated as vicious.

"Potter, calm down," Severus said softly, trying to calm both child and dog. They were both shivering, with fear or cold Severus couldn’t tell. "I won't hurt the dog."

"Yes, sir," Potter replied hopelessly.

The dog stopped growling, at last.

"Clearly the dog is someone's familiar," said Severus dryly, pointing his wand to conjure a lead for the dog. There was no need to give Mrs. Norris a heart attack. "Abduco Canis."

"Do you think you can manage to walk that monster up to the castle or should I stun it?" asked Severus.

Potter picked up the lead. "No, sir. I have him," he said meekly.

“Come along, then.” Severus sighed. He wasn’t angry anymore, just deeply, deeply tired.

That made something occur to him. “Why are you sleeping outside, Potter?” he asked as they walked.

“I didn’t mean to,” Potter replied defensively. “I just came out to...” he trailed off.

“To..?” prompted Severus implacably, steeling himself for the answer.

“To feed Snuffles,” muttered the boy, sounding ashamed.

“Is this where you’ve been sneaking off to every afternoon?” Now Severus remembered the times he’d noted Potter slipping food into a plastic bag. He’d wondered about that, but so much else had been going on that he’d forgotten.

The boy nodded. “I didn’t think anyone noticed,” he admitted quietly. “And I wanted to make sure Snuffles had food.”

“That’s what you’re calling that monster?” snorted Severus, another wave of relief washing over him. He’d pictured any number of illicit, unhealthy, or even possibly lethal activities. “You spend too much time with Hagrid.” The alternating relief and adrenaline had him feeling a little punch drunk.

The boy looked at Severus with such an expression of surprise that Severus fought down another snort of laughter.

“Oh, bugger,” muttered Severus, realizing he hadn’t informed the headmaster that he’d found the boy alive and undamaged. Quickly, he conjured his Patronus and sent it off ahead of them.

They walked on in silence for a moment. “You haven’t answered my question,” said Severus.

“I just haven’t been sleeping well, and I guess I was more tired than I thought. I just sat down for a moment and...”

“How long haven’t you been sleeping well?” asked Severus, suddenly sharp again. He wondered that he hadn’t thought to ask before. It would explain some things about what he’d observed about the boy.

“Er– since... well, for a while,” the boy admitted.

Yes, that said a lot about his behavior and performance.

They were at the castle now. With every step both the dog and the boy appeared to become more ill at ease. The dog’s tail was between his legs. Severus presumed it was only the bond between familiar and wizard that kept the animal from bolting.

Potter seemed to be holding his breath, waiting for the axe to fall. He looked equally ready to bolt and kept putting his hand in the dog’s fur.

They didn’t speak any more until they were at Dumbledore’s office door. The dog balked at first at the moving steps but, at a word from the boy, calmed enough to get on them.

Minerva and Dumbledore were the only ones there.

“Harry!” Dumbledore greeted the boy with relief and pleasure.

“Sir,” muttered the boy. “I’m sorry I got everyone upset.”

“Well, I can’t say I’m at all pleased, Harry,” said Minerva stiffly. “And... what’s this?” She indicated the giant dog that was now cowering behind the boy.

“The boy’s acquired a familiar, apparently,” said Severus. “That’s where he’s been going every afternoon.”

“Why didn’t you say something, Harry?” said Dumbledore gently. “We can certainly accommodate a pet. Even,” the headmaster’s eyes twinkled, “the occasional huge pet.  And I'm certain Hagrid will be happy to help.”

The boy just shrugged, looking at the floor.

Severus was losing patience again. No one seemed interested in explaining to the boy just how much turmoil he’d caused.

Fortunately, Severus no longer had to put up with Dumbledore’s version of discipline where Potter was concerned.

“I agree that the dog should stay with the boy,” said Severus, taking a deep calming breath. “But we still need to discuss the matter of missed meals, wandering in far after curfew, and causing the three of us to nearly turn the castle upside down.”

Potter’s back stiffened.

Minerva sighed. “Twenty points from Gryffindor, then.” Her punishments had been light since she’d gotten back, but that was fine with Severus; he didn’t need to put up with her either.

“I have discussed with Potter that missing meals would result in a ban from Quidditch,” Severus said coldly, addressing Potter alone. He was not going to give Dumbledore the idea that he had any influence here. The boy’s hands went into his pockets and he scowled, but tellingly, he didn’t argue. Not even with the headmaster and Minerva present. “So, for the next week then, for the missed meal, no Quidditch.”

Potter glanced up at Severus in surprise. Perhaps he thought the punishment too harsh, but Severus was damned if he was going to let Potter off easy from this.

Severus paused significantly. “I also want you to stop wandering about the grounds alone. I realize that it seems safe enough, but Black was able to escape Azkaban when no one believed that possible. Given that, I’m surprised we haven’t discussed this before.”

Potter looked honestly confused. “Who’s Black?” he asked.

Minerva looked upset, Dumbledore guilty.

“You didn’t tell him?” asked Severus astonished.

“Tell me what?” asked Potter.

“Severus,” started Dumbledore. “We felt that...”

Severus couldn’t contain himself. “Are you out of your mind?” he sputtered, not caring that Potter was standing right there.

“Tell me what?” demanded Potter more loudly.

Severus rubbed his hand over his face in exasperation. He reminded himself that he would never win a duel with Dumbledore. He reminded himself that he still needed his job.

He dropped his hand. He turned to Potter to look at him squarely “There is a convicted murderer after you, Potter. The Dark Lord’s right hand man. He escaped from prison this summer. No one knows how. This is why the Ministry was watching your house this summer and why they were so concerned that you return to your aunt’s home. There are–were–powerful wards that protect you there.”

Potter’s face grew paler with each sentence, but he never said a word.

“That’s why we have Dementors guarding the school,” finished Severus. “And why I bloody well assumed we were going to find your remains this evening!” The last was shouted at the boy.

“Severus,” Dumbledore said reprovingly.

“Get to bed, Potter,” said Severus sternly. “Take your dog, and for the next week, when not at class, don’t even think of leaving your common room, save for meals. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.” The boy nodded quickly.  After a moment, he asked, “Erm, what about...?” he indicated the dog.

Severus rolled his eyes, it was late and he wasn’t thinking, “Fine,” he growled, irritated that it would take some of the impact out of the penalty, but not seeing a way around it,  “Make sure the damned dog is cared for, but in daylight and no detours.  If I hear any different, you’ll be spending that time with me,” Severus growled.  He wondered if perhaps he should get the house elves to do it instead, but he’d deal with that in the morning.

The boy nodded again.

“Go on, then.” Severus snapped, “Get out.”

The boy didn’t even wait to be dismissed by the headmaster. He and the dog scrambled out of the room.

Severus turned back to the adults.

“That is not how I would have wanted Harry to find out,” said Dumbledore quietly.

“Then you should have told him yourself,” snarled Severus. “The boy has no sense of self preservation. He never simply does what he is told.”

Dumbledore sighed. “I had hoped to spare him the anxiety.”

“Spare yourself, you mean.” This was, unexpectedly, from Minerva. “Albus, we have discussed this before. You can’t protect people by keeping things secret.” She sounded weary, as if this were an old argument.

“It is late,” said Dumbledore. “None of us are thinking clearly. Perhaps it would be better to take this up in the morning.”

Severus nodded. He planned to take a great many things up with Dumbledore in the morning.