Sectumsempera Splits the School

 

Snape carried Malfoy out of the room and Harry was too shocked to do anything but stay where he was. He was in so much trouble. 

Snape had been trying to get Harry expelled for years and if anything was going to push Dumbledore to actually do it, this was it. Harry couldn’t quite believe he’d actually used that spell. It had been on his mind for ages, he had spent ages wondering about what it would do. Thank Merlin he hadn’t used it against MacLaggen!

“For enemies”, the Prince had said. He had got that right! Harry was stunned that the spell had been so... dark.

But Malfoy had been about to use the Cruciatus curse, he thought. Sectumsempera wasn’t an unforgivable at least. Harry’s stomach dropped. He had no proof that Malfoy had been going to use the curse. Priori Incantatem only worked when spells were fully cast. If this came to a court - which it had to if Malfoy was as seriously hurt as he had looked - then Harry would have no proof of the other boy’s actions. 

And what if Malfoy died? Harry hid his face in his hands. He didn’t like the boy- hated him. And he knew the Slytherin was interested in dark magic, especially if he had been about to cast an unforgivable. Harry was even surer now that the boy was a Death Eater. But he didn’t want the other boy to die, hadn’t tried to kill him.

Tears started to spill out of his eyes and he could feel them dripping down onto his hands. What if he had ruined everything? Dumbledore might expel him and snap his wand. What if they sent him back to the Dursley’s? Or if they thought that wasn’t going to be safe then Grimmauld Place would be almost as bad. He didn’t think he could stand going back there again without Sirius.

He might even get sent to Azkaban! The shock of that jerked Harry away from his sobs. He didn’t think they actually sent underage wizards there, but Fudge had threatened him with that last summer, his successor might do the same thing. Then where would they be in the fight against Voldemort?

He sighed, Rita Skeeter was going to have a field day with this, along with all of the other reporters. Hermione couldn’t blackmail them all. The next few weeks of papers were probably going to be full of this story.

 

Harry jumped as a hand took his shoulder in a vice grip and hauled him up to his feet. He was met by the still furious face of Professor Snape.

“Is Malfoy..?”

“Be silent Potter, we are going to the headmaster’s office. Do not dawdle.” Harry didn’t think he had ever heard so much hatred in the man’s clipped voice, including when he had thrown those cockroaches at Harry after the pensieve incident. Harry wasn’t given any options about dawdling anyway as Snape grabbed him by his robe collar and dragged him out of the bathroom.

The corridors weren’t as busy as they could have been, although that was surprising considering the way Myrtle had been screaming. Maybe Snape had scared them off.

Harry received consoling looks from a group of third year Hufflepuffs who ran quickly out of the way of their angry Defense Master. That made him feel guilty. If he had ever deserved to be dragged up to Dumbledore’s office it was now. Snape was actually right to be this mad at him for once.

 

Snape jerked them to a stop outside the Headmaster’s gargoyles, spat out the password and dragged the boy up the stairs. He dumped Harry on a wooden chair outside the door to Dumbledore’s office.

“Sit here, Potter.” He snapped, “Do not attempt to listen at the door. However tempting the idea may be.”

With that, Snape knocked on the door smartly. He listened for the quiet “Come in, Severus.” and disappeared inside, closing the door with one final death glare at Harry.

 

Harry ran his fingers through his unruly hair. He was still soaked in water and Malfoy’s blood. He swallowed, trying to keep down his nausea. Harry brought up his legs so that he could rest his chin on them and laced his fingers together behind his head. He waited, chewing on his lip nervously.

Hogwarts felt strange somehow. Normally the school always felt friendly, like home. This felt uncomfortable. As if the school itself was unhappy with him, didn’t want him. Harry shifted his wand from where it was digging into his side, but he couldn’t take away the guilt that was stabbing him there too.

 

A short while later, Harry heard the spiral stairs moving again, and the clack of heels as somebody climbed quickly.

“Mr. Potter.” It was McGonagall. She nodded at Harry, her face disappointed and angry. Very angry. She was looking at Harry like she was seriously thinking of turning him into a small rodent.

“Professor, is he okay?” Harry forcibly reminded himself that McGonagall had told off the fake Professor Moody for turning Malfoy into a ferret. “Professor, I’m so sorry, really I am!”

Her face softened the tiniest bit. Maybe she would be generous and allow Harry to remain some kind of primate.

“It is too soon for us to tell, Potter. He might be if Professor Snape’s counter charm was fully successful.”

She disappeared through the office door as well. Harry couldn’t hear any conversation from inside and didn’t have any motivation whatsoever to go and listen at the door.

Harry made himself take a breath. Malfoy wasn’t dead. At least not yet.

 

It felt like hours later that the office door finally opened and McGonagall was visible in the doorway.

Her voice was still serious, “Come in now Potter.”

Harry stood on shaky legs and entered the office. It was set up just as it had been for Dumbledore’s Occlumency lessons all year. Except, he noticed, the pensieve which was locked away in its cabinet at the side of the room. Snape was leaning on the edge of the mantelpiece, looking as furious as he always did whenever Harry was in the same room. Harry flinched away from his piercing stare, it was too close to the looks he had got from the man during their lessons last year. 

Dumbledore was sitting behind his desk, his face blank and his eyes twinkle-less.

“Come here, Mr. Potter.”

Harry obeyed the man quickly. Walking up to stand in front of the wide desk. There was no comfy armchairs today. Harry swallowed nervously. Dumbledore hadn’t called him ‘Mr. Potter’ in a long time. Professor McGonagall walked around the desk to stand at Dumbledore’s left shoulder.

Harry felt intimidated facing an incredibly angry depute headmistress and a totally inscrutable Dumbledore, and especially vulnerable standing with his back to Snape.

Harry waited in silence for Dumbledore to start talking. He didn’t have any defenses, maybe he should have prepared one while waiting. He pressed his hands flat against his sides, trying to stop them from shaking.

“Mr. Potter, do you have any explanation for what you have done?” Dumbledore’s voice was full of disappointment. Harry was reminded of his second year, in Snape’s office during the Welcoming Feast. The only person missing was Ron, it was like some bizarre reunion.

“Not an acceptable one Sir.” Harry said, his mouth dry. “I met him in the bathroom and we got into a fight. I didn’t know what the curse would do, Sir, I swear I didn’t.”

“You just happened to meet Mr. Malfoy inside the abandoned girl’s bathroom Potter?”

Harry flinched at the sneer from Snape. He did his best to prevent his fingers from curling up into fists or from wrapping his arms around himself protectively.

“I saw him go in there, I thought he might be up to something.”

“Mr. Potter,” Dumbledore interrupted. “Please try remember it is Professor Snape or Sir. I have told you multiple times this year that you should not concern yourself with Mr. Malfoy’s actions.”

Harry ducked his head, “Yes, Sir. I know you did. But it was Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom, I thought it would be better to check.”

Harry could see irritation reach the headmaster’s eyes. “And was he breaking any of the school rules Mr. Potter? Other than being in an unused girl’s bathroom? Something, may I remind you as a prefect he is entitled and occasionally required to do.” Harry got the unspoken part of that sentence; something Harry was not allowed to do.

“He wasn’t then, Sir.” Snape shifted angrily in the background and the Gryffindor clenched his teeth to stop himself from turning to see what the man was doing.

“So Potter.” McGonagall interrupted, she wasn’t keeping her temper as well as Dumbledore could and Harry could feel the anger she was projecting. “You followed Mr. Malfoy out of bounds, suspecting him of some wrongdoing. Whereupon you attacked him with a potentially lethal dark curse...?”

Harry wished he could run away or shrink or something. His head of house was already making him feel a couple of inches tall.

“He cast the first spell, Professor. He was...” Harry didn’t really want to mention the unforgivable if he didn’t have to. He didn’t have any evidence for one thing. “He was going to cast a spell I couldn’t block. I used that spell because it was the first one I thought of, honestly. I didn’t know what it would do.”

“That is all the less reason to use the spell then Potter, do you not think?”

“Potter never thinks Minerva.”

The headmaster interrupted, “Severus, thank you, we are here to discuss what we are going to do about the situation, not to insult our pupils.”

Dumbledore pinned Harry under piercing blue eyes. “You were unable to block Mr. Malfoy’s curse?”

Harry nodded, “Yes Sir.”

“Is that your excuse, Mr. Potter?”

Harry blinked, “Not so much an excuse Professor,” he said slowly, “He hadn’t cast it yet, but I knew I couldn’t from the incantation. I can’t excuse myself for the spell.” He glanced at McGonagall, “I shouldn’t have used it without knowing what would happen. I wouldn’t have used it if I had!”

“Where did you learn that spell, Potter?” Damn, damn Snape!

“I...I think I read about it somewhere, Sir.”

“Where Potter?”

Harry thought quickly, he didn’t want to tell them about the Prince’s potions book. They would confiscate it straight away.

He gulped, “Just a library book Sir, I can’t remember which one.”

“Liar.”

Snape stalked across the room to tower over Harry. Harry took a step backwards, nervous. The image of the Prince’s book appeared in his head, then Harry was able to see the spell written down and the note underneath it ‘for enemies’. Harry groaned at the pain, half falling as Snape withdrew from his mind.

“I see the headmaster has had no more luck with your abysmal shields than I have.”

“Severus!” Dumbledore wasn’t happy and McGonagall had thinner lips again, a sure sign of danger. “You may not use Legilimency to interrogate students. I would like you to supervise the lower school preparation for the next couple of weeks. It is not acceptable to break into our pupils minds.”

Snape didn’t respond to that as he stalked away from Harry to lean against the wall in the shadows. Harry focused his gaze on the grain of the desk in front of him, unable to look back up at his Professors. Harry wondered if having to supervise pupils out of school hours was the teachers’ equivalent of getting detention. No wonder they always looked so unhappy to be there.

“Potter has been using extra instructions to cheat in his Potions classes, Headmaster. The Sectumsempra curse was also in that book.”

“Which book is it Severus?” McGonagall asked, curious. “Even Horace would have noticed if Potter had brought in restricted textbooks.”

“A spare copy of Advanced Potion Making, heavily annotated by an ex-pupil, Minerva.” Snape replied, “It would certainly explain Potter’s sudden genius for the subject. He has always proved mediocre before.”

Dumbledore shot Snape a glare for that. It didn’t look like it was for insulting Harry though, more like Snape had revealed something more than he had.

“So we have the story.” Dumbledore said suddenly. Harry looked back up at him, waiting for the axe to fall. “Mr. Potter, you have in your possession an old textbook with potions notes and some… interesting spells. You learned one of these spells without knowing or bothering to find out its effects. You then used that spell when you engaged Mr. Malfoy in a duel when you were out of bounds. Professor Snape arrived on the scene, used the counter curse and took Mr. Malfoy to the hospital wing. Mr. Malfoy is gravely injured and may not recover. Is there anything else you wish to say?”

Harry bit his lip, it all sounded so awful like that. Though it was pretty awful, if he was honest with himself.

“I really didn’t mean to hurt him, Professor. Not that badly, I just… we started to duel. And then it was the only spell I could think of…”

“Such is the nature of dark magic Mr. Potter.” Dumbledore sighed, looking old. “I have to inform you that this kind of incident requires the expulsion of the student involved. This was not a first year squabble in the corridor and I am aware that you have had altercations with Mr. Malfoy before, at the end of last year. Additionally, on the Hogwarts express the year before, you and your friends fought Mr Malfoy and his two companions five on three.”

Harry gulped, “Yes Sir,” he said. That was it then, he was going to be expelled. He was going to have to leave the wizarding world, they’d snap his wand for sure. Then he’d have no protection against Voldemort or his Death Eaters…

“However,” Dumbledore said, interrupting Harry’s thoughts once again, “We will have to take into consideration your role in the current conflict. Leaving you defenseless in the muggle world or the magical one would be in effect a death sentence.”

Harry nodded, surely they wouldn’t send him away? Maybe they would let him live with Hagrid, he wasn’t terrible at COMC after all.

“Well Mr. Potter, wait outside again, please. We will call you back in when we have reached a decision.”

“Yes Sir.” Harry’s voice cracked a little. He turned around and walked out. As the door was just about to close, Harry could hear Snape and McGonagall both begin speaking.

 

Harry sat down on the floor this time, next to his chair. He was more able to wrap his arms around his knees in this position and that offered him some comfort. His breathing was very shallow and fast and he forced himself to slow down, he didn’t want to have a panic attack.

The door opened sometime later and McGonagall came out, looking reluctant to leave the room. “Mr. Potter?” She said, glancing about when she couldn’t see him on the chair.

Harry stood up respectfully. “Yes, Professor?”

She looked surprised that he had been on the floor but recovered quickly.

“Potter, I am going to bring your school bag up. Is your potions book inside it?”

Harry knew it was and he couldn’t very well ask her to bring somebody else’s book, could he?

“It is in there, Professor. The bag is in my dorm room, it should be next to my bed unless Ron’s borrowed it for my Charms notes.”

McGonagall nodded and was gone. Harry felt worried that she wasn’t in there defending him from Snape and slid back down the wall to wait some more. Hopefully they couldn’t come to a decision until his head of house came back. Harry was a little relieved when the Gryffindor head came back with his bag.

“Professor is there any news on Malfoy?”

She looked a bit surprised by the question. “He is going to live Potter. He may have some scarring, but the Essence of Dittany used by Madame Pomfrey seems to have eliminated the worst of it.”

Harry smiled a little in relief, he wasn’t a murderer then, and if scars were their main worry, Malfoy couldn’t have terrible long term problems.

“On the other hand, that ghost Myrtle has informed the entire school of what happened this afternoon.” Harry’s face dropped. “I was forced to put most of your housemates into detention, as well as a large portion of your club- the DA? They seemed to think that the correct response was to march on the dungeons to initiate a full-on war.”

Harry groaned and hid his face in his hands. “That really isn’t going to help, is it Professor?”

She grimaced and shook her head. “I did manage to stop the battle as it left the entrance hall. Miss Granger informed me of their plans and I was able to divert them all into detention. Slytherin is however almost certain to win the house cup with the points as they are now.”

Harry was left alone again as McGonagall rejoined the others in the office.

Great, he had been the cause of WW3 downstairs. He wondered how McGonagall had been able to find enough tasks to give that many people detention, that couldn’t be easy. At least she wasn’t going to do an Umbridge and set them all lines with those quills. Maybe she had given the house elves the day off. He hoped not, Harry wouldn’t inflict Ron’s attempts at cooking on anyone.

 

Eventually, finally, the door opened and he was called back in. It didn’t look like much had changed in the room. Snape was still by the mantel and McGonagall still next to Dumbledore. But now Harry’s bag was open on the desk. His books in one pile, his (mostly unfinished) homework and spare parchment in another and a third with all of his quills and ink and things. The little bottle of golden Felix Felicis was there too. Glittering almost audibly. The Half-Blood-Prince’s textbook was there in its new cover. Dumbledore had it open on the desk in front of him, leafing through it.

“Have you used any of these other spells Mr. Potter?” Dumbledore asked without looking up from the page.

Harry thought about it, better to own up.

“Muffliato, Sir, and Levicorpus. I tried the toenail one on myself as well.”

Dumbledore gave him that sharp look again. “Were you aware of the effects of any of these spells before you cast them?”

Harry shook his head.

McGonagall hissed angrily. “Have you learned nothing here, Potter? Why do you think we spend so long teaching you spells the way we do if they could be learned by reading the incantation aloud? Did you even consider the possible outcome before waving your wand around like an excited toddler?”

Harry didn’t answer her, it was too damning.

Dumbledore sat up suddenly. Harry turned back to him.

“I have reached a decision.” He said. “Mr. Potter, I shall not be expelling you today but there will be sanctions taken against you. You will be removed from the NEWT Potions class for the rest of the year. If you wish and have the time then you may use one of the spare classrooms to practice the potions made by the others. You may study for the exam by yourself if you so wish, and sit the exam in August.”

Harry nodded, that wasn’t too bad. At least he wasn’t going to be thrown out.

“I will be removing you from Gryffindor house.” Harry’s jaw dropped, “As such, you are not permitted to play for their house Quiddich team. You will not sleep in Gryffindor Tower or enter their common room and you will not earn or lose points for them.”

Dumbledore paused for a second so that Harry could croak out a ‘yes sir’.

“There was a battle in my Entrance Hall this afternoon, Mr. Potter. A great number of students were mildly injured and they fought in your name and in mine. With no more provocation than a duel you instigated. I am aware that you had no knowledge of this but you evidently have a following and you have not been a great example to them.”

“Instead of your scheduled potions class, you will assist…” He changed his mind at the last moment, “No, you will teach the second year Defense against the Dark Arts class.” If Harry looked shocked then that was nothing to Snape’s expression.

“Sir, what?”

“Be quiet just now, Mr. Potter. You will take his class and in return, Professor Snape will teach you Latin for an hour every evening.”

Harry’s mind reeled. Latin? Where on earth had that idea come from?

“Perhaps if you understood the root language of spells then you would have a better idea as to their effects.”

Well that sort of made sense. Well apart from him teaching. Harry couldn’t teach. Well, there was the DA but that was different, he just showed them things he thought were cool or interesting, there was probably a curriculum for second years. Granted, there hadn’t seemed to be much of one when Lockhart had been teaching the subject…

“You will be allocated a room elsewhere in the castle, probably on the third floor, and you will still attend all of your other classes.” Harry nodded again. “At the weekends you will be required to help supervise the first and second year study hours. You are banned from Hogsmeade and you will not attempt to leave the school without my knowledge, and definitely not without permission.”

Dumbledore’s eyes were hard, Harry thought guiltily of the Marauders’ Map in his pocket and the invisibility cloak in his trunk. Dumbledore knew about both and might confiscate them if he thought Harry wasn’t behaving.

“You will have the same curfew as the fourth years, unless you are held back by detention or have other, written permission from a senior member of staff. I will also require you to spend at least half an hour in the staffroom after dinner each day, starting tomorrow, so that you may consult with the Professors on teaching methods and your students.” 

This was the strangest blend of giving responsibility and taking it away that Harry had ever heard. He didn’t think anyone had ever had a similar role at Hogwarts. It sounded like they were essentially bumping him down to fourth year and making him a part time teacher, all in the same breath.

“I expect you to apologize to Mr. Malfoy in front of the school as soon as he is out of the Hospital Wing”

“Of course, Sir”

“Good. Lastly, you are permitted to use magic only during classes where you have permission to do so, or when you are demonstrating to your class. Except if there is an emergency of course. If you cast in the corridors or between classes then your wand will be confiscated and held by a house elf who will return it to you for the duration of required classes. We would rather not do this as it might place you in further, avoidable danger.”

Harry swallowed and agreed, he couldn’t find any words apart from ‘yes sir’, and he was saying those words a lot today.

“Then that is all. Professor McGonagall, if you could escort Mr. Potter to your office and furnish him with his new timetable and show him the curriculum for second years. Then find out if Hogwarts will provide a room and portrait guardian. Severus, if you would stay here for a moment.” 

McGonagall led Harry out past a visibly fuming Snape.

 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

McGonagall allowed him to sit down in her office while she looked through her timetable lists. In order for him to be able to teach the classes Dumbledore wanted, Harry was going to have to swap from his Charms class to the Slytherin and Hufflepuff one. He looked at the sheet, he was down for six classes of teaching.

“Professor,” he said plainly, “I don’t know how to teach.”

She smiled for the first time in what felt like hours, “Potter, you taught most of that club of yours how to cast a corporeal Patronus charm in a couple of months. I am sure you will be capable of teaching Verdimillious and Expelliarmus.”

“But why does he want me to teach anyone Professor?”

McGonagall sighed, “Potter, Professor Dumbledore does not always have the clearest of intentions. I am not sure why he wants this of you, he has never done anything similar in my tenure. The headmaster was however very concerned with your behavior. It is dangerous both to his school and to the cause of the Order and he cares deeply for both of those.” She gave Harry a Look. “It would be best for all concerned if you could try to go along with this scheme of his. There is relatively little of the year left so you will not have to teach much. Whether or not the headmaster wishes you to continue with this next year, I do not know.”

She picked up a scroll of parchment from a drawer in her desk. It was magically expanded judging by the fact that the professor had to reach in up to her shoulder to pick it out.

“This is the content you will be required to cover before the summer exams. You will have to liaise with Professor Snape to find out what is left to do.”

Harry unrolled the parchment, privately thinking that Snape would never ‘liaise’ with him on anything unless Dumbledore was in the room to stop him from being killed. The parchment was long! Harry had unraveled about 6 feet worth before he realized it was going to go on quite some way.

“Thank you Professor.” He looked at her properly, Dumbledore had said he wasn’t a Gryffindor anymore. At least he hadn’t been put into another house but it felt like they’d taken away the only family he had. He was going to be the only pupil in the whole school who didn’t have that backup. He was also fairly certain that Gryffindor wouldn’t forgive him for leaving the quiddich team just before the last game of the season.

“Professor,” He choked out, “I think you should make Ron quiddich captain. He’s really good at chess and stuff. And he’s a lot better at quiddich now he’s actually got some confidence in himself. They’ll do really well with him in charge and Ginny seeking.”

McGonagall smiled thinly, “Mr. Potter if anyone from the quiddich team is out of detention by then, then that is exactly what I will do.”

Harry was confused for a moment before he remembered the crusade the Gryffindors had led to the dungeons. He grimaced at the thought of them all working away at something. It had been a long time since McGonagall had found Harry’s bag.

“Professor, I’ll sit a whole day detention if it means they can play that game.”

“Thank you for the offer Potter,” She said. “But I am afraid you will not have enough free time for that to concern you.”

Oh yeah, Harry had managed to forget about all of the extra duties Dumbledore had piled on him.

“Where am I supposed to sit at meals and things, if not with Gryffindor?”

His teacher pursed her lips. “I would assume, Mr. Potter that you would sit at one of the ends of the staff table. Perhaps junior, junior staff member would be the closest title for you. Try thinking of your duties along those lines.”

That wasn’t too bad, he thought. Other than everyone staring at him, but they did that anyway.

“Professor,” he said hesitantly. “Do you think you could write down what Professor Dumbledore said? I don’t want to do anything wrong now.”

“A sensible idea at last, Mr. Potter.” She took down about a foot’s worth of notes in her clear hand. The emerald ink filled most of the page. That was a lot of sanctions.

 

McGonagall led Harry down the third floor corridor. They passed the Defense classroom and a fourth year Gryffindor girl who scowled at her head of house as the professor checked the girl was cleaning the dinosaur skeleton properly and without magic. Around a couple of corners there was a seventh year Hufflepuff who was repairing some Peeves related damage. The boy seemed fairly amicable but he had a scratch right across his left cheek. He grinned at Harry when McGonagall had started to walk away. They left him behind as they reached the last turn in the corridor. There was a portrait at the end in an otherwise blank wall.

McGonagall smiled, “Well Hogwarts has forgiven you a little, so you must be at least a little repentant. There was no portrait here earlier. I cannot guarantee the room will be much to your liking though. The castle is not happy when its inhabitants attack each other.”

She looked a little upset for a minute. “Potter it was good to have you in my house, remember that you will always be a Gryffindor at heart even if this doesn’t work out well.”

Harry thought for a second she might be about to hug him, but then she was gone.

He looked up at the portrait, it was of a snake. How apt.

“I suppose you are going to tell me that you only speak parseltongue so I’m the only person who can get in. At least you wouldn’t report me if I go out at night.

“I wouldn’t count on that, old chap.”

Ok, the snake had the poshest English accent Harry had heard outside of Justin Finch-Fletchley. How was that even possible, and why was it speaking English?

“I was charmed by a fellow who wasn’t too good at the old hiss and spit, don’t you know. He thought it might be better if I could talk to everyone. Anyhow, I’m under strict instructions to keep an eye on you my lad. I’d really rather not report you to anyone.”

Harry sighed, “Do you have a password I need to get in?”

“Certainly not. That’s far too mundane for my tastes. I would like you to tell me something new you have learned each time you come in. I will know if you’re lying or remembering something old.”

“Excellent.” Harry mumbled under his breath. “It wants to educate me too. Do I need one now?”

The snake nodded his head.

“Umm… I learned I’m a complete idiot, will that do?”

“’Fraid not old chap. I need something a little more concrete than that.”

Harry thought for a second, “I learned what Sectumsempra does?”

“I would wager you did.” The snake said sadly. The portrait opened and Harry was able to scrabble through the narrow doorway into his new room.

 

If the castle actually had conjured this then it really was mad at Harry. There was a narrow, child sized bed along one wall which might be just long enough for Harry to lie down on. A small desk on the other wall which he could reach when sitting on his bed. His trunk was there as well, tucked under the bed.

There was a small bathroom which was probably only a meter across. It had a toilet and a sink and a shower all in there. It was more like a portaloo than anything else.

He lay down on his bed, watching the second Hufflepuff quiddich team at their weekly practice outside.

“I’m sorry Hogwarts.” He said, feeling a little stupid but eager to get rid of the oppressive feeling of the cramped space. “I didn’t want to hurt him, I’ll try and make it better, even if I have to do all this stuff for Dumbledore.”

There was silence as he had expected, he corrected himself anyway, “Professor Dumbledore.”

The room felt a little less cramped all of a sudden. The room wasn’t any larger or anything but it did feel as if the window might have suddenly grown a little.

“Thank you.” Harry whispered, surprised.

 

It was time for dinner and Harry was incredibly nervous. He had considered just skipping it but he was hungry and didn’t want to be caught out of bounds in the kitchens today. He changed into clean robes, only a little surprised to find that the lions were missing from the breast. His ties were now a purple colour as well, instead of their usual red and gold stripes.

Harry eventually left his room when he had no choice but to run or else be late for dinner. The students who had been in detention seemed to have left after they had finished their jobs. The dinosaur did look clean but the repaired closet wasn’t so happy, you could still see where the seams were from where it had cracked and splintered. Harry wondered if many people had slacked off because they thought they wouldn’t be checked up on. That Hufflepuff must have never had a detention with McGonagall before.

The entrance hall was quiet. And unnaturally clean. There was hardly any noise coming from the great hall either, just the occasional scrape of benches and cutlery. There weren’t any late comers running down the stairs for once either, Harry must be the last person to arrive.

Harry walked through the open doors, McGonagall saw him from the top table and motioned to an empty seat at the very end, next to Argus Filch.

Everyone looked incredibly subdued. Most of the sixth and seventh years were covered in cuts and bruises. Zabini at the Slytherin table had one hell of a black eye, Neville looked particularly worse for wear and several Slytherins looked like they had been victims of Ginny’s Bat-Bogey hex. The Ravenclaw table smelled like lots of them had come out worse-off from a dungbomb match.

The first few years looked mostly unharmed, and more than a little confused. Harry was on the receiving end of hard glares from Professors Sprout, Snape, Flitwick and Pomfrey, along with most of the rest of the staff. Dumbledore didn’t make eye contact.

Harry walked quickly up to the staff table and sat down next to Filch. Happily, the man ignored him after an initial sneer and Harry was able to start eating.

 

Now he was here with all of those students watching him, he wasn’t able to eat much. The Gryffindors looked confused, Harry was worried because he couldn’t see Ron sitting there, McGonagall hadn’t said anybody was seriously hurt. The Slytherins just looked plain angry. The Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs looked like they were split between feeling sorry for him and being mad with him.

When the deserts had finally vanished, Dumbledore stood up as everyone had expected him to.

“I would like everybody from the first three years to go back to your houses now please. I am certain you will be caught up on everything by your housemates soon enough, so you need not worry about being left in the dark for long.”

 

The youngest students filed out of the room quickly, Harry could see some of the third year Gryffindors had to be encouraged out of the hall by their prefects.

 “It has been a long time,” he started, “Since I was as disappointed in every house in the way I am this evening. Hogwarts is an ancient school. We stand for tradition and intelligence. Strength and compassion. This school stands for unity within the wizarding world. Nothing, nothing I have seen today has expressed any of this.”

Dumbledore stood up and walked around the other end of the staff table.

“Today,” he said, “There was a fight between two of our sixth year pupils. This was serious and both of them used dangerous curses. They are both being dealt with appropriately.”

Almost everyone in the hall had turned to stare at Harry. The boy focused resolutely on the back of Dumbledore’s head, forcing himself to listen to the old man’s words.

“However, while the staff were busy with this occurrence, many of you took it upon yourselves to stage a war in the middle of this castle. We are already at war!”

The headmaster didn’t shout but there was a great deal of force behind his words. Pupils were starting to look ashamed. Harry spotted Hermione at the Gryffindor table with the rest of his year and she seemed to be caught between crying and extreme anger.

“You will learn something at this school. Even if you learn nothing else we will teach you to be tolerant of every student here. Prefects, I wish to speak to you after this. You and the Head Boy and Girl should meet me in the prefect room directly after we leave this evening.”

Dumbledore walked back up onto the dais to stand behind his lectern.

“There will be no more fights in the corridors, no more cruel remarks. I will not stand for bullying within or between houses. If you really cannot get on with each other, then I will happily lock you all in the great hall together for a month to sort this. Exams or no exams. Is that clear to all of you? Good! I have been headmaster of this school for over forty years, I have been a teacher here for more than sixty years and I have never been so disgusted with the behavior of my students. You will fix this attitude you all have, this prejudice between your houses. Or we will abolish the house system altogether”

There was silence in the hall. Nobody dared to move. Harry didn’t dare breathe in case the man suddenly turned on him. He had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep himself from crying. The power the headmaster was allowing to show was terrifying. The youngest students looked scared out of their wits.

“You may leave. Except for the prefects, everyone will please follow their head of house. I believe they have more to say to you. I do not.”  Dumbledore swept out past the tables in a flurry of purple robes.

The house heads took their cue and stood up to lead the remainder of their pupils away. Snape paused behind Harry’s chair for a moment.

“Mr. Potter, you will come with me. It seems I shall have to catch you up on my class schedules. If you would accompany me while I speak to my house then we shall move henceforth to my office.”

Harry nodded, standing up. In his mind, inviting the cause of the current conflict into the snakes den was the worst idea there was but he didn’t have an excuse not to go, besides, he didn’t want to be dragged along to the prefect meeting or anywhere else by the irate headmaster.

So instead of running away back to his new room as he wanted, Harry followed Snape down into the dungeons. The door to the Slytherin common room opened automatically for Snape so Harry didn’t get to hear a password.

He forgot to look surprised about the odd entrance to the common room and he thought the professor looked suspicious of that. Harry made sure he looked surprised at the décor of the room.

“What is he doing here Sir?” Pansy Parkinson was the first to speak. She looked at Harry like he was a particularly ugly flobberworm.

“Thank you for asking Miss Parkinson. Mr. Potter is here because I require to speak with him after I am finished here. I am unwilling to leave him in my office to wreak havoc. And I am sure the headmaster would be unimpressed if I allowed the golden boy to be hexed into compote so soon after his little speech.”

There were a few nods around the room but the Slytherins were not going to relax with Harry there.

“Would you mind telling me,” Snape began in a silky voice. “Why exactly you found it necessary to engage the entire school in a full on battle?”

Silence. The seventh years looked ashamed and the sixth defiant. The other two years looked happy that the blame wasn’t being aimed at them at this precise moment and kept their mouths closed to keep it that way.

“Mr. Nott, your explanation please.”

Theodore Nott looked around him, as if he was hoping somebody else with the same name might have suddenly materialized behind him.

“Yes sir. We- the sixth years- were out looking for Malfoy in our free period. Nobody had seen him for a couple of hours, you see. Then that ghost came shooting out of her bathroom, screaming that Potter had murdered Draco. We went back to your office Sir, to try and find you but you weren’t there. We got Haines to go up to the Hospital Wing for us. We were on the way back to the common room to wait for him when we were cut off by the Gryffs and everyone from Potter’s club. They threw the first spells, Sir, I swear.”

Nott stopped for a second to shuffle his feet guiltily. “Then there was a sort of all-out battle. The other Slytherins heard it from the corridor and some of the younger years joined in too. I think some more Hufflepuffs came along as well then, Sir. Then Mc- Professor McGonagall turned up and screamed at everyone. She put everyone into detention until just before dinner.”

Snape strolled along past the lines of students. Towering above everyone. “Does anybody require medical attention?” He asked.

A couple of fourth years stepped forward and Snape beckoned Zabini out of his place as well.

“You may all leave to see Madame Pomfrey, tell her you have my permission.”

They left, thankful and Snape turned back on the others. “The rest of you I want to make this very clear. You are not to get into any more fights with anyone from any other house. The headmaster is going to be very strict on this matter and we do not always come out the best in these occasions. The Depute headmistress obviously decided that you are not to blame for this afternoon’s idiocy so we are far ahead in the house competition at the moment.”

“Would anyone like to own up to using any illegal spells today?”

Harry looked up, wondering if anyone would actually say they had. Much to his surprise, two people did step forwards.

“Granville and Kelvin. Should I be surprised? What is the damage?”

The girl, a fifth year, went first, “Professor, my spell missed. I attempted a Contussious curse on a Gryffindor. I think it hit the staircase so he might have been hit by a chunk.”

The boy was a nervous looking fourth year. “Sir, my spell wasn’t anything to do with the battle, I was studying in the library then.”

“What was the spell, Kelvin? I am losing patience.” Snape growled.

The boy hurried to answer. “It was a Geminus charm Sir, on a knut. I wanted to see what would happen to the copies. I wouldn’t have been able to spend them anywhere though Sir.”

Snape frowned at them, “I made it very clear at the start of term that none of you were to use any dark magics this year. Granville and Kelvin you both have detentions tomorrow at 7 a.m. sharp. Wear old robes.”

The two children grimaced and stepped back at the dismissal. When Snape said you had to dress any less than perfect at any occasion, you knew it was going to be bad. And to have detentions before breakfast was always more unpleasant.

“I take it I need not impress on you any further how important it is that you do not use these spells anymore?” The Slytherins nodded as one. “Good, the last thing tonight is to mention Mr. Potter here.”

The students all looked up at that, intrigued. This was what they had been waiting to hear.

“Mr. Potter is no longer a student of Gryffindor house, he will be spending his time more wisely than on the quiddich pitch. Mr. Potter will be taking two of the lower school classes for the remainder of the year and perhaps next year as well. As such, you will treat him with respect in that capacity and encourage respect from the younger years. Potter and Malfoy are both being punished for their roles in today’s fiasco, so do not worry about that. You will not attack him or allow him to be attacked by others, is that understood?”

Another chorus of agreement from the students as Harry wondered who else was supposed to be attacking him.

“Do we have to call him Professor now, Professor?” Crabbe asked from the back of the room.

“No, Mr. Crabbe. You can still call him Mr. Potter. Any other questions?”

“Professor Snape?” asked the boy who had cast the Geminus charm, "Is everything going to be different at school from now?”

 Snape stopped pacing in front of the boy, “Yes, I hope so.” He said simply. “It is time for a change, don’t you think?”

The fourth year looked relieved and Harry wondered what the boy had really meant by his question. What did the Slytherins want to change so badly?

“You will all write me an essay about what happened today. I want to know where you were, what you did and which spells you cast in case anybody asks me. I would then like you to write about what you could have done to prevent the escalation which occurred. I shall return in an hour or so. You have until then. I expect no less than a foot from each of you. You may work in groups as long as I have a foot for each person. Nobody will submit so much as an identical sentence or you will both be re-writing them before breakfast.

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Snape and Harry left the common room with the boy feeling more confused than ever.

“Sir was there a point to me being there that I don’t get?”

“Probably,” Snape replied, his usual sneer fixed back on, “I expect you’ll work it out yourself at some point.”

“Yes Sir.”

“You know Potter, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you so contrite before. I’m quite enjoying the new you.”

“Yes Sir.” Harry couldn’t be bothered trying to argue with the man. Especially not if he was going to have to work under him for the rest of the year.

Snape’s office was the same as it had been for Occlumency lessons. The jar of cockroaches had been replaced as well. They had a seat on either side of the desk.

The Defense professor ran through what he had taught the second year students so far. Mostly this was magical creatures which meant Harry would be left to teach them the spells they needed for their practical exams. Snape had a multitude of threats to use to warn Harry about what would happen if any pupils were injured during class time and Harry swore to him that he would have them practicing on dummies before each other and that they would learn the spell counters way before they had any duels in class.

 

After extracting those promises, Harry was thrown out of the office and advised to write up lesson plans for the next two days. Harry blinked and wondered how the hell he was supposed to do that.

He supposed he could just do a quick run through of the creatures they were supposed to have covered so far. He hoped Snape had done a better job at teaching than Lockhart had.

As he trudged back up to the third floor and his room, Harry remembered he had homework due tomorrow for Transfiguration and Charms. He had half-done drafts but they were in Dumbledore’s office along with the rest of his books. By checking his watch, Harry could tell it was past the Fourth year curfew and he didn’t want to make Dumbledore even angrier with him.

Harry decided to write out what he could remember as well as he could and hope that he could get his stuff back early in the morning. If he got his bag back at 6.30 then he might have time to do it at breakfast.

Damn, no he wouldn’t. He couldn’t exactly do his essays at the same table as his teachers. He would have to skip breakfast then. Life was so much harder when you had to obey the rules!

Harry finally reached his portrait and the snake just stared at him for a minute.

“You know lad, I had rather thought you were going to try to be back before your curfew. I must say I am disappointed.”

“You and the rest of the castle.” Harry muttered, “Can I go to bed please?”

“I need your password first please.” The snake said.

“Um… Snape cares if his students do something against the rules, and actually does punish them for it sometimes.”

“That’ll do, I suppose. Lots of students never discover that in their time at Hogwarts. Am I to take it you were talking to the Professor before you came up here?”

“I was.” Harry said, “Erm, he didn’t give me a note though, sorry.”

“I’ll have to check in with the headmaster lad. But I’ll let him know you said that. Next time ask for one. In you go.”

The portrait door swung open and Harry went in and got ready for bed. It had been a long day but he couldn’t stop until he’d made some headway with his homework. The heads of houses seemed to be pretty mad with him for stirring everything up and he didn’t want to test even Sprout’s legendary patience tomorrow. Luckily, the essays didn’t need him to make any reference to the texts so he was able to write something even without his books.

Harry collapsed onto his bed and tucked his feet under his desk. This was far better than the cupboard under the stairs anyway. Here he had enough light and a desk and even a bathroom. This was luxury compared to that. In a way he loved that Hogwarts at its worst was still better than privet drive had been. When his teachers had been talking about the chances of Harry actually having a room, he had been worried that he might have to sleep in the corridor where any passing Hufflepuff and his Kneazle could attack him in his sleep.

When he had a list of everything he had to check up on before his first teaching period- fifth tomorrow with the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs (it looked like he might have to skip lunch too at this rate) and he had written the introduction and half of both of his essays, Harry was finally able to lie back on his bed and try to sleep.

He was glad that Malfoy was okay but he was a little nervous about apologising to the boy in front of the entire school. At least the boy was more likely to accept the apology if it was made in public.

Chapter 2 

 

When Harry woke up the next morning he was confused about why he was sleeping in some random cupboard. It wasn't until he opened the door and saw the portrait on the outside that he remembered what had happened the day before.

The school was still quiet when Harry left on his way up to Dumbledore's office five minutes later. He wasn't very surprised about that, the headmaster's speech yesterday was enough to make anyone behave and keep their head down for a while.

Harry passed some Ravenclaw students in the corridor and he was surprised by the glares they directed towards him. They didn't say anything, even though one of them- Michael Corner- had been in the DA last year, when they had been on good terms.

The gargoyle at the bottom of the stairs let him up when he gave it the password. If Dumbledore minded him coming, then he probably would have changed it, right?

It couldn't have been any later than 6.30 but the headmaster was already up in his office. He called for Harry to come in and waved his wand, causing Harry's now packed bag to fly towards him. Harry managed to catch it before it hit him. It didn't look like Dumbledore was going to say anything else so Harry thanked him as politely as he could manage and left him to his papers.

Harry went back to his room to finish his essays. There wasn't much hope that the Great hall would be open for breakfast yet so Harry had to just hope he could finish in time.

---

Harry made it to Transfiguration at 9 o'clock, without getting his breakfast. He only just made it in the door with his homework and Professor McGonagall raised an eyebrow as she closed it behind him.

The first thing he noticed was that Ron wasn't in his usual seat. Ron wasn't in the room at all. Harry took the seat on the other side of Hermione instead. She gave him a quick hug before leaning back to her own desk.
Harry was surprised, normally they only hugged each other after their annual flirt with death. She must have really been worried about him.

McGonagall started lecturing the class but Harry couldn't focus properly.

"Hermione, where's Ron?"
She looked reluctant to answer, not wanting to stop taking notes.
"I'll tell you after Harry, shush."
"Hermione, tell me. Is he okay? He didn't get hurt yesterday did he?"
"Harry..."
"Please Herm..."

"Mr. Potter!"
Harry looked up guiltily. The whole class was staring at him.
"Please could you try to pay some attention to the lesson Potter? Miss Granger is trying to do so, please desist from distracting her. Mr Weasley will be fine as soon as he has stopped growing Snargluff pods in place of his ears."
A couple of Slytherins on the other side of the room sniggered and high fived each other.
"Thank you, Mr. Goyle, Miss Parkinson. 10 points from Slytherin. Mr Potter, do listen, five points-" She broke off, remembering that Harry wasn't in her house anymore.
"If you keep talking, I shall have to move you, Potter. Or else I will have to take points from Miss Granger and she is working well."
"Yes Professor, sorry."

The double period went on and Harry really did make a decent attempt at his notes. He thought McGonagall appreciated that because she gave Hermione some house points with a pretty feeble excuse.


When the bell rang, Harry had to run to his new Charms class, so he didn’t have a chance to talk to Hermione. This was the lesson he was going to share with the Slytherins and Hufflepuffs. The Slytherins took their time Leaving Transfiguration but Harry had to finish his essay conclusion before the next bell rang.

Professor Flitwick didn't say anything when Harry handed in his parchment with the ink still wet, simply telling him to take whichever seat was free when everyone had arrived. Harry stood by the chalkboard, waiting for everyone to make their way to their seats.

There wasn't actually any free desks. That was because the Ravenclaw students seemed to prefer spreading the contents of their bags out over an entire table whenever they came to class. The Slytherins were already sitting three to a table so Harry picked a place next to the least cluttered Ravenclaw. She threw him a dirty look but he just shrugged back. There wasn't anything else he could do about it. He had to sit next to someone.

This class was a Charms practical and they were going over the same lesson that Harry had done on Monday. He did well at casting the spell and Professor Flitwick asked him to make an attempt at helping Crabbe.
Crabbe didn't seem to understand why the whole school was so down, despite having sat through the rant yesterday. He kept trying to turn around and ask Malfoy questions before remembering he wasn't there and turning back to growl at Harry.

Crabbe did eventually manage to make his coin jump up in the air and start spinning as they were supposed to. Harry was amazed to notice that every time the coin landed, it was heads up. Harry even tried swapping the knut for a sickle, but it kept happening.
"Are you trying to do that?" Crabbe shook his head. "You could probably win money with that. Try out that gambling shop in Knockturn Alley."
Crabbe tried to suppress a grin, failed miserably and let out a chuckle. It was a far cry from the 'hur, hur' noise he usually made. Goyle turned around in surprise and punched his friend in the arm.

"You're not supposed to be nice to Potty, idiot. He hurt Draco yesterday."
Crabbe looked defiant, "Snape said we can't go after him.  He said that we need to not mess everything up. Then everything'll be okay."
Crabbe turned his back on Goyle.
"My dad goes there sometimes, Potter. He always seems to be lucky with it. It drives my mother mad though. Wouldn't have thought you'd have been down Knockturn, but the Professor says you do always break the rules."

Harry couldn’t fault that logic, even coming from Crabbe.

 

---

Sitting at the top table, playing with his lunch, Harry wondered why the Slytherins weren't trying to kill him for once. Especially after Malfoy yesterday. But weirdly they seemed to be the happiest students in the school. Their younger years seemed to be pretty much oblivious to everything that was going on and the older ones were oddly cheerful for people who had been outnumbered so badly in a skirmish. To be fair to them though, they had held their own really well. The other pupils were still licking their wounds and muttering darkly about whichever professor had set them detention.

The conversations at the staff table were also about the detentions. Professor Vector was complaining about how many students she had to supervise tonight. Sinistra, still bleary eyed from waking up, was trying to convince McGonagall that she should be allowed to take students for detention at midnight after she had finished teaching her classes. It wasn't working out. She should have been able to guess that really. Harry was honestly surprised that McGonagall didn't insist they do Astronomy during the day like all their other classes.

The depute headmistress had always been strict about curfew. He got a detention from her every time he snuck out to use the prefects’ bathroom- Ron always gave him the password. He wasn't sure how she managed to know which days he was going there, but she always caught him. Of course she never came back after that, so Harry accepted the weekly detention- an hour on Sunday after lunch- and walked to the bathroom after she had gone back to her rooms.

Harry was suspicious that she was just using him as a spare cleaner. Especially since she had him do the same thing every week. McGonagall's magical orrery was apparently too delicate for the house elves to look after. Afterwards, she would always let him pick a biscuit from her tartan tin before he went upstairs to finish his homework. She could be quite helpful with dropping hints about the week's Transfiguration questions as well.

He was also quite impressed that she could make it up to the Gryffindor common room from her office so quickly.

But the Headmaster still wasn't back in the great hall, and according to the conversation between Madame Hooch and Sprout he hadn't been at breakfast either. Harry thought that while he must still be angry with them, he was really too old to sulk.

Having Dumbledore missing made Harry feel like Umbridge was about to walk through the front doors of the hall in her ridiculous pink tweed robes. He supressed a shudder at the memory. Thankfully, she didn't and Harry left for his free period, so that he could properly prepare for his first ever teaching period.



Harry cobbled together an oral quiz for them on the creatures they had covered with Snape. He hoped that they had taken in more than he had in Lockhart's classes. He was worried that he wouldn't have time to cover everything he was supposed to before Easter and the exams.

Hopefully the questions he had would be enough to get them started thinking about the weaknesses of the magical animals. Then he could get on with showing them the spells which would help them escape or capture them.

That took him through the rest of lunch and half of his free period in the library. With a pile of notes in his bag, he wandered down to the classroom. Harry stood outside the door listening to see if the room was empty. Unfortunately, Snape was still inside teaching the fourth years. He was telling them about the Unforgivable Curses. Suddenly the door burst open and Snape was right in front of him, hauling him into the room.

"Mr Potter, thank you for your timely appearance. I was just telling my class that there was only one person on Earth too stubborn to be not be killed by the Avada Kedavra curse, and here you are! I do not suggest that you practice it between yourselves,” he said to the class, “even though you would not get much more of a reaction than a nosebleed. Feel free to try it out on Mr Potter though. I am intrigued as to whether he is still so immune."

Harry laughed a little nervously. But the contemplative looks that the Ravenclaws and Slytherins were giving him were more than a little scary.

"I like to think I've become less stubborn these days Professor. Maybe they shouldn't risk the trip to Azkaban if I'm right."

"You should be more confident Potter." Snape smirked and dropped his voice, "After all, you continue to listen at doors despite constant reminders of the inappropriateness. You seem sufficiently stubborn to me.”

“Fourth years, your homework for next Monday is to complete three feet on the use of unforgivables in the war against He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named."

"Which war?" Called out a Ravenclaw with particularly pointed ears.

"The War. The one which culminated with Mr Potter's facial adornment, and the temporary fall of the Dark Lord." Snape sneered at the boy. "Class is not dismissed until the bell rings, unless you fancy tripling however many detentions you currently have due. If any of you are lucky enough to have none and think you are exempt, I will award you 9 hours of detention."

Harry was fairly sure that most students had been awarded detentions by now. There were only a few fourth years (mostly Ravenclaws) who hadn't been at the battle. They had been studying or at the gobstones club, choir rehearsal or something else. Not earning any since had required staying quiet and not annoying the most irate teachers but only two or three of them had managed it. 

Harry followed Snape through the connecting door into the DADA teacher's office. Harry was delighted to see that it had changed since last year and Umbridge. Apparently she couldn't bear to leave the kitten plates behind when she ran away. It would have been amazing if she had stuck them up with some permanent sticking charm though- like the one holding up Sirius' mother at Grimmauld Place. Harry took a seat, grinning at the thought of Snape trying to mark essays in a pink room with kittens gambolling around him.

Snape's eyes narrowed, probably anticipating Harry's thoughts. He took a seat on the edge of the desk so that Harry had to crane his neck to look at him.
"Mr. Potter," he started, "While I do not approve of your methods, I do think that trying to learn the content of some of my classes is important. I am mildly surprised that you didn't take it into your head to simply knock on my door to see if there was anybody inside. That is what any professor would have done but then, you are not known for your brilliant planning abilities."

Harry blinked, "I didn't want to interrupt, sir. That didn't quite work. How did you know I was there?"

Snape rolled his eyes. "Potter, after five and a half years here, I would have thought you would be aware of the school truancy measures. Especially you. As an aid for teachers, so they need to be aware of messengers from other classes when there is a silencing spell cast on the door: they may always look out for the appearance of colour in the silencing charm. It shows up a red silhouette of anything on the other side which has a pulse. You should test this out at some point with your classmates, if they are ever out of detention. It could be of some use to you."

Harry didn't know silencing wards could do that. That could be really useful to know for the other times he used it. It could be helpful for finding out what was on the other side of walls as well- it had worked through the door. He made a mental note to ask Hermione to look it up for him sometime. Muffliato was helpful but other spells did have their benefits.

The bell rang and the noise of chairs being dragged across the floorboards in the classroom stirred both of them into action. Harry stood up and Snape walked forwards to put a restraining hand on his arm.

"Mr. Potter, do not forget we will have our first lesson tonight. We shall commence immediately after your 'happy hour' in the staff room. Meet me at the external door to this office."
Snape released Harry and sat behind his desk.
"Mr. Potter, do your best to not destroy my classroom, if you would. Or at least not the entire castle."

Harry gave a small (unreciprocated) smile. "I'm only giving a small quiz, sir. "

"Indeed. The warning stands."

 

---

Harry walked through into the classroom. The class were expecting Professor Snape so they were probably all lined up outside the door already. Harry grinned at the thought of them being terrified by the sudden appearance of Professor Snape from his office door instead of the classroom one. They'd probably all be having panic attacks out there.

Harry set down his notes on the big desk and cleared the chalkboard. He used his wand to move the desks and chairs to where he wanted them. He took one last, deep breath, then opened the door wide.

"Come in second years, and sit down. We're having circle time today!"
The class was made up of Gryffindors and Slytherins. The Gryffindors seemed confused to find him there, but some of them smiled at the reference to the muggle activity. The Slytherins looked less surprised to see him- Snape had told the seniors after all, but they looked a little bemused by the seating arrangement.

Harry had arranged the chairs so that they were in a sort of horseshoe shape with the teacher's desk and blackboard making up the top. This way he had a little room to pace and he could use the edge of the desk and draw on the board where everyone could see. Out of all of the classroom designs it was closest to Divination. At least they're still sitting in actual chairs, Harry thought.

When everyone had chosen a seat -there was an obvious divide between the two houses- Harry walked up to the front.

"Good afternoon, class. My name is Harry Potter." One of the Slytherins couldn't suppress a snorted 'duh'. "Professor Dumbledore has asked me to teach both of the second year classes for the remainder of the year in order to free Sn-  Professor Snape for other duties. I had some experience last year of teaching Defence and I received an O grade on my OWLS so I promise you I do know enough to teach you."
Some of the students looked apprehensive about that.
"Honestly, I have done something like this. Anyone have any questions for me before we start?"

A Slytherin boy put up his hand. Harry thought he recognised him a little, but he didn't know why. "What are we supposed to call you?"

Harry hadn't thought about that, "Just Harry, or Potter. Scarhead, I don't really mind" there were a few nervous giggles, "as long as it's not Professor, I don't have a mastery in anything like most of your other teachers. What's your name?"

"Barnabas Granville, si... Mr. Potter." The boy hesitated, "Is it true that you killed Draco Malfoy?"

Several Gryffindors spun in their seats to glare at the boy. He didn't look particularly ruffled though. The tension in the room was higher than even the usual Slytherin/Gryffindor classes.

"Calm down, guys." Harry said. "Granville, no, I didn’t kill him; Malfoy and I got into a fight. He is recovering in the Hospital Wing at the moment but will soon be back in classes." Harry was not looking forward to that. He paused for a minute.

"I know that everything is a bit odd at the moment, with all of the older years being twits and the professors handing out hundreds of detentions but everything will settle down soon enough and we'll be back to normal. Everyone just needs to calm down a little."

A Gryffindor with a ginger afro put his hand up and spoke when Harry nodded to him. "I'm Riley, Potter. Why is Professor Dumbledore so mad at us? It's like last year when he just disappeared."

Harry ran his hand through his hair and leant back against the desk. "The headmaster is very busy at the moment with a lot of things. I know that he is very unhappy about the fight downstairs, he is not particularly pleased with anybody. Out of everybody, the first and second years are behaving the best and that's another reason for us older ones to be embarrassed. Try to not worry too much, everything will blow over in a couple of weeks."

"Now we need to get started," He said, standing up and starting to pace a little. "If anyone has any other questions, they can come and ask after class. Professor Snape tells me that you have been studying magical creatures. Specifically Dark creatures of greater intelligence. We are going to start off with learning the spells to combat these and then we will move on to some general defensive spells and charms."

Some nods, at least they hadn't fallen asleep quite yet, Harry didn't intend to give them the opportunity. He looked around the desk for an object which might be useful. Seeing nothing else, he picked up an ugly stone paperweight and transfigured it into a red rubber ball. He tossed it to Granville who caught it easily by his fingertips.
"I'd like you to tell me your name and tell me the name of a creature you covered this year along with one weakness. When you’ve done that, throw the ball to someone else. Everyone got it.”

There was a chorus of yeses from the students. The wizard-raised pupils looked very confused. Obviously this wasn’t a technique used in wizarding primary schools.

 

The small Slytherin with the ball thought for a second, seemed to accept that Harry was mental and went along with it. “Granville, we covered Banshees. They’re strength is their voice and their premonitions, I suppose being without those is a weakness.”

Harry nodded and turned to write this on the board. He drew up three columns; creature, weakness and a blank one as well, “That’s the right sort of idea, throw the ball to someone else, would you.”

Granville nodded and handed it to a girl a couple of seats down. She glared at him for putting her on the spot. Harry chuckled.

“Everyone will have a go, better to get it done with while there are loads of answers.”

She nodded, “My name is Vaisey. We looked at Trolls before the Christmas break. Their weakness is their stupidity.”

“Good, pass it on.”

She threw the ball to a tall Gryffindor girl who looked surprised and almost dropped it. The girl blushed.

“Goodwin, um. Ghouls need to have a home. They don’t like it when you change their nest.”

She passed the ball carefully to the boy next to her. The way the boy was cautious about taking it told Harry that the girl probably had a reputation for being clumsy. It was a lot like how Kingsley behaved around Tonks.

The boy grinned, “I’m Dawson. Talking about trolls, Mr Potter, I heard it’s best to distract them by shoving your wand up their nose and getting a friend to knock them out with their own clubs.”

The class laughed, apparently some stories of his earlier years got passed on in the common rooms.

“It is possible, Dawson.” Harry smiled, “I wouldn’t advise it though. If it happened to me again,” (“It will” a Slytherin muttered.) “Then I would try to conjure something else to amuse the troll to allow me and my friends time to escape.”

“But that wouldn’t be as fun, sir. That way you don’t get to ride piggyback!”

More laughs, “Yes but it also reduces your chances of being smashed to a pulp by an angry troll. Death by troll would be a bit embarrassing, they’re just that stupid. Who’s next?”

Orange afro boy waved his hand and caught the ball easily. The boy could be a good chaser if he was any good on a broom, Harry thought idly.

 

“Vampires, sir. The obvious ones; garlic, holy water, sunlight and all that.” Riley didn’t wait to be acknowledged but tossed the ball across to a dark Slytherin who didn’t even bother to sit forward, instead he made it seem like it took immense effort to open his eyes.

“Zabini. Werewolves, silver.” He dropped the ball into the lap of the girl on his right and closed his eyes again.

“Is that it, Mr. Zabini? Nothing else?”

The boy sighed and sat up a little more, resigned to having to converse a little. “They’re also pretty much human for the rest of the month, but they’re really weak for a couple of days after the transformation. I guess if you count it as a weakness, werewolves are a lot less fierce if they take the wolfsbane potion before they transform.”

He seemed to have exhausted himself by that extensive speech and collapsed back again. He was a lot like the Zabini in Harry’s year- always bored but never missing anything either.

Harry went on with the rest of the class, getting each of them to speak about a creature. Mostly he was trying to work out everyone’s names and find out a little about each person. For example Riley being full of confidence and Goodwin being cautious. It was more than halfway through the lesson by the time everyone had had a turn and everyone had had a laugh at one girl’s experience at a hag’s birthday party.

“Right, time for the next thing.” Harry scrawled out the top of the third column; Defence technique.

“This time, I’ll have the ball. We’re going to go down the list and work out what we could do if one of these creatures appeared in this classroom right now. Then later in the term, we’ll do this again and hopefully you will all be able to cast some spells which could make everything easier. Alright, if you get the ball, give me an answer. Try to pay attention so I don’t smack you in the face, chaser was never my favourite position.”

 

The list grew quite quickly. Harry was impressed that Zabini knew about the differences between Lumos Solem and Lumos Duo already. Those spells weren’t covered properly in charms until third year. He was equally impressed by the Goodwin girl’s knowledge of Hinkypunks, but less so of her catching abilities. Yes, she got a nosebleed. Luckily, Harry now carried Nosebleed Nougat in his school robes and he gave her the right side to chew. She didn’t seem too bothered by the incident and Harry suspected that it happened quite often and he pitied her at flying practices.

A Slytherin called Alptraum had some insightful information on getting rid of ghouls which Harry planned on verifying and passing on to the Weasleys, although he thought they actually quite liked theirs when he kept quiet.

Harry got them to help put all the desks back in place before the bell. He knew there was a spell for that but he couldn’t for the life of him remember it right now. A couple of them had questions which he managed to get through while the rest of the class was copying the chart down from the board.

He set them eight inches on the differences between the four types of troll. They all looked a little amazed, that was only two inches on each troll. That was probably the easiest homework they’d been given since the beginning of first year. That didn’t matter, three or so lines on the characteristics of each would be enough to engrave it in their memories for a few months.

Harry was quite happy with how it had gone, they all left the room still smiling which was a rare enough occurrence for students leaving a Gryffindor and Slytherin class. There wasn’t any mixing between the houses but there didn’t seem to be any obviously abrasive encounters either.

 

---

 

Harry jumped as the office door opened and Snape walked in. Harry wondered how long he had been there and wondered why he hadn’t put up a silencing charm on the doors. Wait a minute…

 

“You said you knew I was there because a silencing charm flashed up!”

Snape didn’t bother to turn around from his scrutiny of the blackboard. “Did you just figure something out Mr Potter? Do share with me why it wouldn’t have worked, I am eager to hear.”

Harry frowned at him, “I could hear what was happening through the door, so obviously you didn’t have a ward set up.”

“Obviously.”

The man had a talent with that word, Harry swore nobody else could draw it out like that.

“So it had to be something else.”

“Quite right.”

Harry held in a groan. Snape evidently wasn’t just going to tell him. The man had gone back to studying the board. “Potter, your spelling is atrocious. Did you let them copy this down?”

“Sorry, sir. I’ll correct it properly in their work.”

“See that you do.”

Harry finished his written copy of the information and Snape cleared the board while he was writing the last sentence out.  By then the rest of the sixth year NEWT class was arriving and Harry had to go take his seat.

There was the sound of a door slamming nearby and Harry turned to look out of the door just as a swirl of purple and gold robes flashed by. Dumbledore, and by all indication he had just left the DADA office. Harry grimaced. It was odd to imagine that Snape and Dumbledore had been in the next room the entire time, listening to him teach. On the other hand, neither had been annoyed enough to burst into the room while he was running the lesson.

 

Snape got started and spent not an insignificant time lecturing Harry for his inability to use non-verbal spells. He still couldn’t get anything useful to work apart from Levicorpus and Harry knew better than to try to use it on the head of Slytherin. Especially since Harry had watched his father use the spell in one of Snape’s worst memories. And the man was a Death Eater. How embarrassing must the experience have been if that was on his worst memory list?

 Harry was practicing curse breaking with Hermione, they were supposed to be doing it verbally first and then moving onto the non-verbal through the lesson. As always Hermione was progressing with annoying ease. Harry was fine with the first step but couldn’t get anything to work without speaking. Once he did think it had worked, but had to be rescued from his rapidly shrivelling ears by Hermione who was quick with the counter. He didn’t get very far on and knew he’d have to keep going in the next lessons, until he could get the bracelet they were practicing with safe enough to put on.

The class was oddly quiet without Ron and Malfoy there. They both had a tendency to whine a lot in this class. Every class if you were being honest. The hospital wing was probably becoming more and more unbearable as they both recovered. Snape gave Harry an extra 3 inches on his homework for transfiguring his paperweight, giving Harry two feet on identifying curses with shifting properties.

 

 

---

 

Dinner was another quiet affair. Dumbledore seemed to have returned to his office after his brief spying session on Harry’s class and was once more absent. Professor McGonagall announced that there was now a schedule of all of the detentions received by the students, which was available on the wall of the great hall. Apparently detentions were due to be from 7 until 10 every weekday evening and a further eight hours over the weekend. Quiddich matches were suspended for a month in the hope that by then some members of each of the teams might be free to play.

Harry wondered again how they were going to fit so many people into detentions. They could probably clear the Forbidden Forrest with this many, not that anyone wanted to.

When all of the dishes had been cleared away, everyone rushed off to get in some homework time before today’s detentions. Harry remembered that he had to spend some time in the staff room and made his way there. He hadn’t been in there when there was staff before- unless you counted the time when everyone had been panicking as the Chamber of Secrets was opened and he and Ron had hidden in the cupboard. Harry didn’t. Maybe it would be best to not tell anyone about that.

Harry made it to the stone gargoyles before realising he didn’t know the password, he wasn’t sure there was a password. How were you supposed to get hold of teachers after classes? Hermione would know. The gargoyles weren’t the most sympathetic to his plight.

“What do you want Sonny Jim? Classes are over.”

“I need to get in, they’re expecting me.”

“Ooh, expecting you are they? That explains why they are here to let you in, doesn’t it.”

Harry groaned and barely resisted smashing them with a blasting curse.

“Please open the door. I don’t want to get detention for the rest of time.”

“That might be a slight exaggeration Mr Potter.”

Harry spun around. Professor McGonagall was standing there, watching with a small smile on her face.

“Probably only a couple of weeks, what with the volume we are going to be getting through with this new schedule. Shall we go in? Hugo, Victor, if you would.”

“Of course ma’am.” They said together, moving aside to clear the door.

McGonagall laughed at the look of nervousness on Harry’s face, “Be brave Potter, we aren’t all that bad. Except Severus, of course.” She walked into the room.

Harry gulped, trying to gather his nerve. He schooled his expression into one that was slightly calmer and stepped through.

 

Harry didn’t know what to do. There wasn’t any spare seats where he could just sit and hide. And he couldn’t exactly just stand in the middle of the room. It would look even stranger if he went and stood in a corner.

McGonagall looked up from a squashy, red armchair and sighed at him, drawing her wand.

“For goodness sake Potter.”

She waved her wand and silently conjured an elegant, comfortable looking wooden chair in the space next to her. Harry sat down automatically, murmuring a quiet ‘Thanks’.

After a few moments, an odd movement filtered through Harry’s consciousness. Professor Sinistra was doing some sort of seated jig by moving her arms and legs about happily. She was singing too…

“Aurora, do try to show a little decorum.” McGonagall admonished her.

Sinistra ignored her and kept singing. Harry made out some of the words. “I don’t have to make the tea anymore. I don’t have to make the tea anymore.”

“I wouldn’t get your hopes up, Sinistra.” Snape had appeared from somewhere. “I doubt Mr Potter is capable of brewing even tea by himself.”

“Come now, Severus.” Slughorn sounded more depressed than anything. Harry was willing to bet he hadn’t taken Harry’s recent defamation well. “The boy is evidently a capable brewer if given adequate instruction.”

Harry by now had got the hint and moved to pick an old, obviously well used kettle, to start making tea. It was an ancient looking thing and really heavy, Harry struggled to lift it with both hands. Luckily, Professor Flitwick was next to the fireplace and he whispered that Harry should use magic to move it. After setting it over the fire to boil, he tipped the equally huge pot half onto its side so he could look inside it. Harry swore there was mould and other, even less savoury things floating around. He wondered how many years it had been since anyone had washed it out.

He knew from experience that using scourgify would leave a taste of soap behind so he resigned himself to only rinsing it out, closing his eyes to avoid seeing what was sucked down the plug hole.

By then, the pot had boiled and Harry prepared the tea. He didn’t think he had ever used so many teabags at one time. When that was finished and left to brew, Harry turned around to ask where he could find some…

Mugs. There were mugs everywhere. Every teacher was holding one steadily out to their side, still engrossed in whichever activity they had been. Harry wasn’t sure if he had to worry about milk or sugar or anything but then he saw a milk jug floating around the room, professors absently siphoning some out into their own cups. Two cubes of white sugar flew out of the bowl next to the pot and headed straight for Flitwick. One dropped into his mug and the small man caught the other, crunching it happily.

As Harry walked around the room with the teapot, he marvelled at how well each mug suited its owner. Of course Professor McGonagall’s was a bone china tea cup. Hagrid’s obviously was about three times as big as everyone else. Slughorn’s was gaudy and large and comforting, the same way he enjoyed his life.  

The last person Harry reached was Snape, who was sitting in the corner of the room furthest from the fireplace. His mug was on the arm of his chair instead of out to the side and he had his hand resting over the top.

“Sir?”

“I drink coffee, Potter.”

Harry rolled his eyes, “Of course you do, sir. Would you like me to make it?”

Snape glared at Harry. “What exactly do you mean by that Pot-“

They were interrupted by McGonagall shouting across from the other end of the room, “Severus, do try to not engage Potter in a duel. We all know who would win and you would have to explain to Albus why his golden boy could now be neatly packed away in a mustard pot.”

Harry winced, Snape noticed. “Not quite so golden now, are we, Mr Potter?”

“Never was, sir. Can I get you your coffee?”

Snape nodded cautiously. “If you think you can manage not poisoning it.”

“Nothing I could do could be worse than this teapot was sir, trust me.”

 

Harry walked back across the room to the table where the teabags and coffee were kept. He filled a cafetiere and was asked to fill a few more mugs on his way over to Snape. He heard Professors Flitwick and Sprout chatting.

“Pomona, did Mr Potter and Severus just have an almost pleasant conversation?”

“Not by any normal standard, Filius. Maybe by theirs though.”

Snape looked suspiciously at his mug and summoned some sugar. He seemed to accept that Harry hadn’t poisoned it but that was probably less of a trust thing and more of a potion’s master thing. Or a ‘watching Harry every single step of the way thing’.

 

Harry went back to the teapot and pulled a small piece of chalk out of his pocket- he had picked it up earlier in the Defence classroom and must have forgotten to return it. He transfigured it into his own teacup. He was surprised when it turned out with an identical pattern to the one he always used at the Burrow. It had snitches and bludgers on it spinning around the outside. The mug was slightly bigger though, in this form. The Weasley’s had been a half-sized, child’s mug and would have been a little embarrassing. Harry poured himself a cup.

Professor McGonagall looked mildly approving when he sat back down next to her. He supposed the teacup was slightly better than the ones he had produced in class before. Against his will, he found himself drawn into the conversation.

“Potter, you should be able to give us a different approach to all of this. Can you think of anything to stop the despicable behaviour being shown by your classmates? This ridiculousness has been going on for long enough.”

“What are they doing?” Harry asked, confused. “I haven’t really seen anyone outside of classes, Professor.”

Madame Hooch huffed and answered. “The question you should be asking is, what haven’t they been doing? They are rude, destructive. They start fights in the corridors.”

Flitwick piped up, “I had four fourth years truant from my class this afternoon.”

“No Slytherins, I hope, Filius?”

“No, Severus. Not your precious snakes. A couple of Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs. I found them in the kitchens and made the house elves keep them working through their free period. I’m having them catch up on what they have missed by tomorrow and they have double homework.”

“You should have given them a fortnight’s detention. All they’ve missed is an hour of their free time. We can’t go soft now that they are acting up.”

Harry frowned, “Professor McGonagall, does anyone not have a detention? Above the second years, I mean.”

She shook her head angrily. “Every single student is on that list in the great hall and has more than three detentions. Including your friend Miss Granger.”

Harry thought for a second. If everyone had a detention, it meant that they had been giving out blanket detentions. Maybe each head of house had done so. Or some teachers were particularly annoyed and had given them to their whole class.

“Professor, maybe if you didn’t give detentions for every little thing.” He hurried on as she was about to cut in, “Just for the moment. If you do that then they won’t feel like you are just thinking of excuses to put everyone in detention. Maybe if people were able to get some time back from detentions by behaving well, or something. Then they could get some time before the end of term…”

“They have earned their detentions, Mr Potter. The concept should not be a foreign…”

“Yes, sir.” Harry cut Snape off mid-sentence. Trying not to flinch at the glare that was sent his way, hurrying on before he was interrupted himself. “What I’m saying, Sir, is that they may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. That’s the way they see it.”

There were some puzzled looks.

“Oh for Merlin’s sake.” The Muggle Studies teacher burst out. “The boy is saying they feel as if they might as well be burned for an unforgivable as an Aguamenti. For a group of academics, you really do remain quite deliberately dense when it comes to obvious muggle proverbs.”

She was mostly ignored, this seemed to be a common rant from Professor Burbage.

Vector took it up again. “Potter, if they would start behaving themselves then they would stop getting detentions, it is simple. That is how it has always been done.”

“Not if you’re going to give a whole year detentions because of what a couple of people are doing. And why should that couple care if they get an extra detention on the end of a month of solid detentions? Especially when they know that’s going to happen even if they behave!”

There was a silence then as the professors considered this new angle, there was a couple of baffled nods as well.

“Maybe we will have to work something out later,” said McGonagall. “We should really talk about why you are here though. How did you find your first class?”

 

There was a worrying amount of interest as he described what he had done in the lesson, even from those who had never taught him. They all seemed completely confused by the interactive elements he had introduced, even Professor Burbage.

“So you didn’t ask them any questions?”

“I asked them all the same questions.”

“Didn’t they fall asleep?”

“They couldn’t fall asleep.” Harry sighed, “They had to pay attention to what was happening or they’d drop the ball.”

Two or three teachers laughed.

“Are you really trying to tell us that nobody stopped paying attention? You have a Zabini in that class.”

“Oh, yeah. But he had the best answers anyway so…”

There were some nods and murmurs of agreement. It seemed to be a pretty common problem for them.

 

When they had finished grilling him, the conversation turned back to what the hundreds of detainees were being assigned tonight. Professor McGonagall took the floor.

“For the first couple of weeks I’m going to need most of you supervising students every night. We should need fewer at the weekends. I am going to ask each head of house to watch a different year, you and the other professors in your house will supervise them for the evenings. I shall take the seventh years and any third years. Severus would you take the sixth years, Pomona the fifth and Fillius the fourth. Rolanda, if you don’t mind I would like for you to take any first and second years.”

“Minerva, as much as I would love to have all of the sixth years together in one room, I have to begin Potter’s ridiculous Latin lessons tonight. I can’t very well teach him with sixty other students lounging about.”

McGonagall sighed, “Severus, you will have to work something out. Some of the students will have an education in Latin, why not set them some work to do while you teach Potter? Have the others write lines or an essay or some such nonsense. Let them practice their dreadful essay technique, some of them have barely improved since the OWLs.”

Snape nodded, “In that case Potter, we will have our lesson in the larger hall off the third floor corridor instead, I believe you have been there?”

“Fluffy’s old room?” Harry checked. Snape nodded his head as the rest of the professors laughed. “Of course, Professor. 7 o’clock, there?”

“Do not be late. Minerva, you told the students they would be collected from the great hall tonight?” McGonagall nodded to him and Snape left, robes billowing. Professor Sinistra stood up to pour herself more tea and sent her cloak flying in mockery of the action, to wide amusement.

“Ok people, it really is time for us to move. Charity, would you take some of the fifth years for detention for me? I can’t have them all in the greenhouses at once.”

 

The staff stood up en masse to head to the great hall. Harry was amazed when he made it into the corridor and everyone seemed to take a different route to the great hall. He even spotted Professor Babbling- of ancient runes- scrawling a symbol on the wall to open a passageway which wasn’t even on the Marauder’s Map.

Harry turned to McGonagall in awe, “Do you know where that one comes out?”

She gave him a disapproving look and walked away down the marble staircase, rolling her eyes. That was a dull route to take- maybe it was her prerogative as depute headmistress. Within seconds, Harry was at the wall, trying to see if the rune was still visible or if there were any other marks on the wall. No luck. Harry resolved to watch much more closely the next time anyone used it.

 

 

The room on the third floor was enormous. Mind you, it had to be to have contained the huge dog. The ceilings were high and vaulted and the trapdoor firmly shut and padlocked. Harry wondered if they had dismantled the obstacles downstairs or if everything was still set up.

 He wouldn’t have been surprised to find out that Fred and George had broken in and brought back the nettle wine from Snape’s logic puzzle one day a couple of years ago, after remembering that part of the story. They were both intelligent and reckless enough to try it and to get away free, too. It was just bad luck that they had run into a particularly angry suit of armour while slightly the worse for wear and had to be patched up by a disapproving Madame Pomfrey.

 

Now the room was piled high with desks and old benches. That explained how Snape was going to get everyone to write at the same time, anyway. From the look of the place: Harry suspected they were going to use the room for some exams at the end of term. Logically, it made more sense than trying to fit every year into the hall when they didn’t have their NEWT or OWL exams.

 

The door opened with a bang and students scurried in in the way they only did when preceding Severus Snape into a room. Soon enough the whole of sixth year- minus the two invalids, Ron and Malfoy- were all sitting at desks watching Snape pace along the front.

“How many of you have had tutoring in Latin outside of school?” He demanded with no other introduction. Most of the Slytherins, a handful of Ravenclaws, Hermione and Justin Finch-Fletchley raised their hands. Snape moved them all down to sit in the same area and set them some declension work, whatever that was. One of the Slytherins looked at the instructions with wide eyes and reconsidered the extent of their knowledge of Latin, slinking off to join the rest of the year.

Snape set the rest of them various essays. Then he summoned Harry and the Slytherin who had been trying to escape the declensions down to two desks at the very front of the room.

“Mr Potter and Miss Greengrass, shall we begin with the simplest things and work our way up from there? You do know that most of the names and incantations we use for magic come from a Latin route?”

Harry did his best to focus. That wasn’t as hard as you might think. Having a two on one lecture from Snape did a lot to help you concentrate. There was no talking from the room behind them. It was eerily quiet, worse than the OWL exams last year because there wasn’t even examiners wandering about the room and whispering to each other. The voices of the three of them echoed oddly around the high ceiling. Harry saw some of the Slytherins trying to not smile at some of the mistakes he made. Even Hermione couldn’t contain a giggle when apparently he mispronounced something in such a way that Greengrass went bright red and turned wide eyes on her housemaster. Snape- of course- took points from Hermione.

They sat there for the whole three hours, just working their way through vocabulary and word definitions. Snape told Harry to look up a chapter in the Library before the next lesson as well. A bell rang through the school exactly at 10 o’clock, it must have been set especially for the detentions. Snape allowed everyone to tidy up and head back to their common rooms. The man swept along the rows, collecting all of the essays into a large pile which he eyed distastefully. He left the desks as they were instead of moving them back where they had been. It looked like this might become a staple detention.

 

Harry was just leaving with his bag when Snape called him back.

“Mr. Potter, I take it you are planning on using a similar lesson plan with your other class tomorrow? Do not forget that you have another class in the afternoon and then a double on Mondays. It would not be quite so impressive if you turned up without any kind of plan.” Snape sneered in his characteristic way.

 “Your experiment may have worked this afternoon but this form of new-age teaching will not catch on. Try to not totally ruin that class. If they begin to misbehave in their other lessons, we will all know who is to blame.”

Harry thought it wouldn’t be wise to point out that ‘new age teaching’ had already caught on in the muggle world- about twenty years ago. He didn’t quite understand why the wizarding world was so Victorian about some things but surely one of the professors had attended a muggle primary school at least. They seemed to be going with however Dumbledore would have been taught if he was a muggle child. Snape pushed past Harry to leave the room first and head down the corridor.

“Professor,” Harry shouted, remembering something, jogging after him to catch up. “Sir, can you give me a note to explain why I’m out after curfew.”

Snape almost smiled, “You want a pass?”

“Yes, sir.” Harry hoped the man would give him one and not just make a fuss.

Then the man did smile. Yes, it did look strange. “Potter, the staff have been waiting over five years for you to ask someone that question. I’ll write your note for you if you sign something saying I was the one you asked.”

“Why?”

“It’s a running joke in the staff room, Mr Potter, that you have never had a note after curfew. The first person you ask wins the pool. We all thought we had lost when Lupin came along, but you never asked him either.”

Harry blinked, bemused. “What?”

“It is not that difficult to understand, you nitwit. There has hardly been a week in all your years here where you haven’t been caught out of your common room after curfew. Never try to make a career out of spying on anyone by the way. How you can be quite so careless when you own an invisibility cloak is beyond me.”

The professor was scribbling down the two notes as he spoke. One for him and one for Harry. He held out the quill for Harry to sign one then signed the out of hours slip with a flourish.

“Now go to bed, you look ridiculously tired. Your fan club might start to worry.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you.”

Harry hurried out of the classroom and rushed down the corridor to his room. He didn’t see Snape standing in the doorway, watching him go. Even if he had, Harry would have thought the man expected him of being up to no good.

 

 

“You are late again.” The snake portrait said, “The headmaster was most displeased yesterday.”

“I have a note today.” Harry said, holding it up so that the portrait could see it clearly. “Look, I got permission from Professor Snape.”

The snake frowned and Harry panicked for a moment that it wasn’t going to be enough. As Snape had said, he didn’t ever ask for a note. What if this wasn’t what he was supposed to have?

“What’s the password then?”

 

Harry smiled, relieved, “The staff teapot hasn’t been cleaned out properly in the last decade.”

The snake nodded and the picture swung forwards. The snake retreated to a tree far away in the background of the oils and curled up around a branch. Harry accepted that as is invitation to go in and sleep.

As he began to climb through though, he heard the snake calling to him.

“You won’t be pleased but don’t take it out on me. I had nothing to do with anything.”

That didn’t bode well…

 

The room actually seemed a lot nicer than the way he had left it earlier. To start with, it looked a bit bigger- closer to the size of Dudley’s second bedroom. The bed looked like it was a full single bed and Harry looked forward to being able to fit. There was even a desk chair!

As Harry sat down in the chair to admire it, he noticed a scrap of paper there which he hadn’t left.

Mr Potter,

Further to our discussion yesterday. I have become aware that you have disregarded two of the conditions of your continued presence at Hogwarts. First; your non-adherence to the curfew imposed upon you and secondly; your use of magic when it is not permitted, I became aware of your transfiguration outwith allotted times.

As a consequence of this, you have forced me to impose a new sanction - I have temporarily taken custody of your father’s invisibility cloak. You may retain your wand on this occasion only, any new infarctions will trigger further action.

 

Albus Dumbledore

Headmaster

Harry blinked before throwing himself to his knees beside his trunk. He searched everywhere. It was true, Dumbledore had taken it away.

He felt the tears in his eyes and tried desperately to not let them fall. The cloak and the map were the only things he had which belonged to his father. He resolved to keep the map within hands’ reach at all times from now on.

The loss was a deep one and for the rest of the evening, Harry felt like he couldn’t focus on anything. He managed to get a little of his homework done, and he checked he had a rough outline for the morning’s lesson. After that he still felt like a part of him was missing- like he had lost a finger or toe.

Harry fell asleep clutching his photo album to his chest. He couldn’t comprehend why Dumbledore thought this was the best reaction to the situation. Harry had never known him to be cruel before.

 

 

Before breakfast, Harry headed to the defence classroom. There he found some books on ghouls and ghosts. Thankfully Gadding with Ghouls, the Lockhart text, wasn’t the only one available. Harry avoided that one.

He used the time to look up some of the information the second years had come up with the day before, to check that it was all true. Or at the very least, not likely to make anything worse. A few of the points were useful so he made notes to include them in today’s lesson. He was quite happy since he even had a plan for the afternoon lesson.

 

 

Breakfast was another quiet affair. The tension in the hall was still high and there was still no sign of the headmaster. Harry was glad about that, he didn’t think he could talk to the man at the moment. Harry could practically see Professor McGonagall getting more and more irritated with her house. Most of the students were muttering between themselves or staring sullenly up at the head table.

Two exceptions to that were Ron and Hermione. Hermione was lecturing Ron in that constant way she had, which bordered more on nagging. Ron just looked confused. Harry could only hope that Hermione was giving him a good representation down there. It would be bad if Ron was mad at him too. At the moment, he just seemed to not understand why Harry was sitting up there while he was stuck with a solid month of detentions.

Malfoy still wasn’t back at the Slytherin table yet and Harry was struggling between feeling incredibly guilty and relieved at the same time.

 “Mr Potter.” The sound of Snape’s voice this early in the morning made Harry give up on mangling his breakfast, to turn and talk to the man who was sitting three empty seats away. Snape looked quite agreeable- for him, that is, the same look on anybody else’s face would have made Harry disentangle himself from the conversation as quickly as possible.

“I was looking for some assistance in organising my detentions for Saturday. I was wondering if I might have your assistance as a part of your…obvious repentance.” The man’s voice dripped sarcasm and Harry’s insides twisted painfully. It probably wasn’t an open invitation.

He gulped, “I suppose so, Sir. What was your plan?” Normally Snape would refuse to tell him, and just give him a time and place for detention. But apparently not this time.

“I have recently been reminded of a source of some uncommon potions’ ingredients. I am going to lead a small expedition, Professor Slughorn will be involved in the preservation and storage after we have taken a team to collect ingredients.”

Harry was confused, “Why do you want me to come?” A pause “Sir.”

Snape looked at him as if he should already understand what he was talking about. Harry just stared back blankly. After a few moments, it was obvious Harry didn’t have a clue.

“Mr Potter, thanks to you, there is a giant basilisk corpse in the bowels of the school. As you should be aware, even with your limited capabilities in Potions, Basilisk ingredients are incredibly rare and much sought after. The scales, venom and blood among other things can be used in some very potent brews. For obvious reasons, you would need to be present on such an expedition.”

Harry’s eyes opened wide as he understood. “You mean you want to go down to the Chamber of Secrets?”

Snape took a steadying breath, trying to regain some of his patience.

“Yes Po- Mr Potter. That is what we were planning to do. Does that sound possible?”

Harry nodded slowly. “It should be sir. We’d need a way back up of course, Fawkes probably couldn’t carry everyone. We’d need a way to get through where the roof had collapsed as well, but I think a few controlled reductos would take care of that. Oh, and I’d need to open all the doors as well of course.”

Snape just nodded, pushing away his empty plate, “I will be using about fifteen students from above fifth year. We will take precautions to make sure nobody is in any danger.”

“Yes Sir. Sir?”

“What, Mr Potter?”

“Ginny Weasley, Professor.” Harry hesitated, “Could you make sure she isn’t on your list please? She still has nightmares about him. I don’t want her to have to be down there again.” Harry thought privately that he didn’t really want to go back down there either. He would have asked that Ron be left in the school as well, but it was really unlikely that Snape would have considered to bring him anyway.

Snape was giving him a strange look, as if he was trying to decipher him like an essay which made no sense, one of Crabbe’s perhaps.

“I am sure that can be arranged.” Snape got out of his seat and spun away without any attempt to end the conversation. Harry jumped out of his skin when the bell rang a moment later for the first class. Harry had to take two shortcuts and run to the Defence classroom to make it there on time. 

The Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff class was a little less organised. The students had been warned by the other second years about what to expect so they weren’t hugely surprised when he had them passing the ball around and answering his questions. Harry was also introduced to Emily Jacks.

Emily was a muggleborn Ravenclaw who had read a ridiculous amount of books. Harry had begun to imagine her as a sort of second Hermione – although Hermione was not as keen on fictional books as this girl. The class was interrupted as they had a five minute argument over why Werewolves couldn’t change form just at will. In the end she perked up when he suggested animagi as a possible explanation.

Far worse than that was the quarter of an hour while the girl tried to convince Harry that Vampires could come out in daylight but would be too obvious to muggles because they sparkled. Harry wasn’t very sure what to say to that. In the end he pulled down a few texts from the bookcase and showed her the passages on vampires, in an attempt to persuade her. She reminded Harry of Luna Lovegood’s tenacity with the Crumple Horned Snorkack. Except Harry was 100% certain the second year was wrong.

Harry recognised other literary works from her interpretations of inferi, dementors and kraken. He was forced to wonder if she ever spent any time actually studying for school work. Luckily, she didn’t seem to be too put out when he proved how each of her points were wrong. He even got a small round of applause from the class at the end of the lesson when he had firmly disproved her last objection.

 

 So the greatest disruption in his class so far was that one child was too enthusiastic about the topic… He supposed he should be glad about that.

“Professor Snape usually just takes points and sets us extra homework, Sir.” One Ravenclaw told him in confidence on his way to Flying class.

Harry himself had to run to his Herbology class. Professor Sprout was in a better mood than she had been last night and Harry guessed she must have had a productive set of detentions- at any rate, the compost heap was significantly bigger and fouler smelling. Maybe Hagrid had finally rid himself of all of the thestral dung that had been accumulating at the edge of the forest.

Harry was going to partner himself with Ron for the lesson but Professor Sprout stepped in and paired him with Neville instead, leaving Ron with Hermione.

Harry managed to whisper to Ron for a moment as they were both collecting pots from the back of the class.

“Are you okay mate? You were in the hospital wing for ages.”

Ron nodded quickly and hurried back to his desk without saying anything. Hermione looked worried but she didn’t say anything to him either.

 Harry tried asking Neville about what was going on with the school but he said he had been spending any and all of his spare time for the past few days in the greenhouses. Apparently, Professor Sprout had been really angry with him for getting involved in the fight and hadn’t forgiven him yet. Neville thought she might be getting there though and insisted that it wouldn’t take more than a few more hours of work.

Harry liked that idea - he knew Neville looked up to Sprout a lot, the teacher seemed to see this as a sort of penance.

Maybe all of the teachers would treat him normally again if Harry served his by behaving and teaching his classes well.

 

It was a long and lonely walk back to charms, following the Ravenclaws to the classroom. Trying to talk to Terry Boot wasn’t successful and the boy had ignored him, marching away with the others.

 

 

Harry was partnered with Crabbe in this lesson for the first time ever. Goyle looked lost for a minute before Millicent Bulstrode appeared to drag him away.

Today’s lesson was to make bottles spin; a progression from the previous lesson. This was for a specialised brewing technique where the brewer was required to spin an infusion of Butober Pus and Gillyweed extract. The mixture released a lot of gas and so the top couldn’t be stoppered shut while it was spinning. It was tricky to get right, and potentially dangerous if you managed to throw the ingredients at somebody at top speed.

For this lesson, they were practising with a coloured dye. The idea was to encourage them to not spill the contents all over themselves. Every so often, Professor Flitwick would come around and de-blue each pair. After the third time Crabbe had made a whole bottle empty itself over his head, Harry really began to miss being paired with Hermione.

Eventually, Harry was managing to get the spell to work three out of four times. The issue he had was trying to work out how to stop Crabbe from setting the bottle down open end first every single time. They made some progress, but it would take a lot of effort from the house elves to get the blue stain off the floor.

The next time the tiny professor passed, he gave Crabbe some advice on his wandwork and some house points. The boy grinned, it wasn’t very often he earned points for his house. Goyle was gaping, slack-jawed, at his friend, from the other side of the room – he couldn’t believe it either.

 

 

As he was leaving the classroom Harry tripped flat on his face, catching himself badly with his arm. Looking around, the only students who had noticed were a group of laughing Ravenclaw girls. As he tried to get up off the floor, Harry noticed that his laces had been knotted together. He grit his teeth and decided to say nothing to them. There was no point in confronting them in the corridor, and besides that, his wand arm was really starting to ache. Harry reluctantly made his way to the hospital wing instead of to lunch, his stomach complaining loudly.

 

 

 

The hospital wing was very quiet. Only one bed was occupied and the curtains were pulled tight around it. An educated guess told him it must be Malfoy’s bed.  Before he could get any further than closing the door, Madam Pomfrey appeared.

“What do you need, Potter?”

Oh good, one more person angry with him. He had been expecting this one though - Madam Pomfrey was fiercely protective to downright scary when students injured each other on purpose. Most of the school thought the matron had been a Hufflepuff in her own Hogwarts years, but Harry was convinced she was from Slytherin.

“I hurt my wrist” Harry wet his lips nervously. “Would you have a look please, Ma’am?”

She whipped out her wand so fast that Harry almost flinched away from it. She cast a quick charm.

“Sprained, It won’t take two seconds, Potter.”

Harry hissed in pain as she straightened out his wrist. There was a rush of warmth, then a sharp tug as the muscles in his arm all shifted slightly. Pomfrey handed him a mild pain draught and practically pushed him out of the infirmary.

All in all, it was less than ten minutes between the accident and Harry walking into the Great Hall. He skirted along between the Hufflepuff and Gryffindor tables, guessing that it was the safest route. He couldn’t be bothered trying to deal with angry Slytherins or Ravenclaws right now.

Wanting to get to the Defence classroom quickly so he could prepare for his next class, Harry only sat at the staff table long enough for his glass of pumpkin juice to appear. He downed that, then gathered himself a napkin full of sandwiches, before jumping up and leaving. Harry was sure he heard McGonagall and Sprout laughing at his hasty attendance but kept walking away.

 

 

Snape was still in the classroom after his last lesson. Harry was surprised to see him there, he hadn’t noticed that the man hadn’t been in lunch.

Harry knocked and waited to be admitted. Snape waved him inside, impatiently. The man started in surprise when Harry offered him his pile of sandwiches. Harry got the bigger surprise when Snape actually picked a ham and mustard from the middle.

“Not laced with a sleeping draught, I take it, Mr Potter?”

Harry blinked, the only sleeping draught he had ever given to anyone had been Crabbe and Goyle in second year. Harry was sure that Snape didn’t know about that, but it was an oddly specific choice otherwise. It was hard to know what exactly the man had seen in their Occlumency lessons though, and Snape always seemed to know more than he should. Harry couldn’t think of an answer and instead took a huge mouthful of a tuna roll as an excuse to stay quiet. Snape arched one of his eyebrows before tucking into his own.

He chewed so slowly that Harry became inordinately nervous there might be a sleeping draught in the sandwich. But he felt if anyone was going to recognise a suspicious potion, it was Snape. He finished the food with no further comments and brushed the crumbs off his hands.

“Mr Potter, you may feel it is acceptable for you to skip lunch but you should make yourself available in the great hall during dinner. Your presence will be required.”

Harry’s stomach dropped in the space of about a third of a second.

“Is it Malfoy, sir? Is he OK again?”

Snape nodded, “Mr Malfoy is due to be released from the hospital wing after the last class of the day. It would be incredibly helpful if you would avoid any … altercations with him until after then. The headmaster will also be present this evening.” Snape gave him a significant look. “You would do well to behave appropriately. Do not, for example, incite another rebellion.”

“I didn’t incite anything, Sir!” Harry forced himself to calm down. “I didn’t know anyone was going to do that, professor. It isn’t like I told everyone ‘I’m going to fight Malfoy, if I’m not back in an hour, go start a war with the rest of his house.’” He took a deep breath. “I really didn’t want that. I didn’t go looking for a fight, let alone whatever is going on now.”

Snape just stared at him for a minute before clearing his throat. “I believe the appropriate term is insurrection. Potter, I cannot pretend that I understand the reasons behind the headmaster’s actions, but rest assured there will be a valid purpose to this.”

Harry nodded back at him soberly. If there was, then Harry couldn’t figure it out.  

“What is your intended plan for today’s lesson? You are not moving on to combative spells yet?”

“No, sir. Today we are covering non-combative defensive spells. Going over the different forms of Lumos, silver transfiguration and Cacophonous spells.”

Snape nodded, “Make sure they know the difference between Solem and Maxima, lots of them forget that in their second year. Professor Flitwick does not cover them in any great detail.”

“Of course, Professor. I am planning to mention Devil’s Snare as well. It’s become slightly more common recently and hardly anyone remembers what to do with it.”

Snape left, presumably to get some more lunch and Harry dropped into one of the front row desks and started writing out a homework assignment for his classes. Professor McGonagall had suggested he try to set at least three hours’ worth each week. Hopefully, this would be a little more exciting than the essays they were used to. Harry thought even Ron might have been interested enough to do this by himself when he was in second year- rather than getting Hermione to help as he always did.

 

 

Snape appeared back in the classroom before the bell rang for the end of lunch. He strode across to peer over Harry’s shoulder at the growing pile of parchment slips.

“I thought even you might have mastered a copying charm by now, Mr Potter.”

“I’m not supposed to use magic when I’m not in class, sir. And even then, only with permission from my teacher. Besides that, they’re mostly different. ”

“That’s rubbish,” Snape interrupted, “I saw you use transfiguration yesterday and you used a hovering charm on that blasted kettle.”

“I forgot, sir. Professor Dumbledore noticed as well and confiscated my cl- something of mine.”

The black eyes glinted. “He took that ridiculous invisibility cloak?”

Harry nodded glumly, “Yes, sometime yesterday.”

There was a moment of silence as Snape reached over to take a look at some of the parchments lower in the pile.

“What do you mean, these are all different? It is only homework for the second year class.”

Harry smiled a little, “I’ve made little scenarios for them; so all their answers will have to be different. I’m going to get them to write one, consult on another, then mark and cross mark the other two in class next week. They’ve got to write about the best course of action. I thought it might be interesting to see what they come up with.”

Snape picked up the pile of completed sheets. “This is going to take up much more time than it is worth. Do you realise how long these will take to mark?”

“Not so long after they’ve gone over them a few times. Hopefully they’ll only ask me about them if they have any problems. It should be easier to get through and save me setting everyone four sets of homework.”

The door opened and a group of Slytherins came in. Harry moved so that he was sitting in his usual seat and put away his homework. Hermione came in and gave him an apologetic look before walking with Ron to a different place. Ron wouldn’t even look at Harry. The next Gryffindor in the room was Neville. The boy looked around at where everyone was sitting before nodding to himself and taking Ron’s usual seat next to Harry.

Harry looked at him gratefully, glad that he didn’t have to sit by himself in yet another class. There was no chance to talk to the other boy though because the next bell rang and Professor Snape jumped straight into his lecture, not even waiting for his students to pull out quill and ink.

 

The lecture was a long diatribe on the difference between dark and non-dark spells. Harry felt it was sort of pointed at him, the Sectumsempera curse was definitely dark. But, as Harry was quick to tell himself himself, so was Draco’s Cruciatus.

“The main driving force,” Snape was saying, “behind all spells- as even complete dolts such as you should have discovered by now- is intent. Of course power is required. There is no such thing as a dark wizard or witch who is weak. Evil is not necessarily dark, though dark is never good.” Hermione’s hand shot up.

“Miss Granger, if you are looking for an in-depth debate on the morality of some dark spells, I have to inform you that this is not subjective. Dark spells have dark intent, have a malignant purpose. You cannot cast the killing curse with compassion as your motive. The Imperius curse cannot be used to save or help.” Snape glanced around the room, resting on Harry, “You have to mean it.”

Harry’s heart skipped at least two beats. He couldn’t draw in breath. Bellatrix’s words as exactly as Harry could remember them. Snape stopped speaking and watched him intently. There was a long silence. So long, in fact, that the class had started to turn around in their seats to look at the two of them. Harry forced himself to take in air as his light-headedness built up to a nauseating level. He was terrified Snape was going to see straight into his thoughts. Then he would call him out in front of everyone, or drag him to the headmaster. He wasn’t sure which would be worse.

“Mr Potter, do not doodle in my class!”

It was one of Snape’s usual brisk snaps. Harry glanced down at his sheet of parchment. There was doodles all along the margins, there for anyone to see if they looked. Harry hadn’t drawn them though.

It was only Harry and Snape who knew that this was a cover. Snape had certainly noticed the words strike a chord. Harry knew there was going to be a very awkward conversation with him in the very near future.

Harry coughed a little to clear his throat, it had constricted itself in his nervousness.

“I’m sorry, sir. It won’t happen again.”

Snape narrowed his eyes. Harry frantically tried to decide if his words might be an admission of guilt.

“It had better not Mr Potter, or you shall be spending a very, very long time in detentions with me.”

“Miss Granger,” Hermione jumped a little as Snape swung suddenly on her. “As I was saying, any ethical and moral points you may have are rendered invalid by this fact, do you disagree.”

Hermione bit her lip, obviously reluctant to give up on this point.

“Very well, you may submit a thesis to me and we shall see if you can find any evidence of merit. No more than 16 inches.”

Snape swept back to the front of the classroom. “To continue; Dark spells increase the levels of darkness in each witch or wizard. The summoning of the emotions used in these spells is addictive. It preys on the caster, becoming easier to gather such feeling each time they attempt to do so. The caster uses such spells more often and may become dependent on them. They begin to feel that there is no power without Dark Spells and that those who do not seek to use it to their gain are weak.”

That rang a bell as well, though Harry couldn’t remember why. It niggled at the back of his mind while he dutifully wrote down everything the professor was saying. Maybe he had heard another death eater say it sometime?

 

The homework assignment was as long and complicated as all of Snape’s assigned work was. It would take at least three books from the school library… although, maybe Harry could stay in the classroom and use the ones from the teacher’s bookcase instead.

Finally the school bell rang for the end of the lesson. Harry was up and out of his seat before the professor was halfway through the word ‘dismissed’.

“Miss Granger, if you would remain behind for a moment, we will discuss your extra homework. Mr Potter, you will see me here after your last class of the day or you will not have a spare moment until you leave this school.”

Harry agreed dully, there wasn’t any way to avoid the conversation about dark magic. It was going to happen, no matter what.

 

Transfiguration passed all too quickly for Harry. Hermione and Ron sat together again, though Harry could hear Hermione’s nagging and Ron trying to distract her the whole way through. Professor McGonagall was nice to him as well. She congratulated him warmly on his conjured cutlery, despite the knife’s habit of flashing red every few minutes.

 

Harry’s next class was his second teaching the Gryffindor and Slytherin class. The students seemed to already know each of the spells and were able to cast them tolerably well. For the majority, they just seemed to be surprised to find out that the spells they had learned in Herbology or Charms at the beginning of their first year could be useful to defence.

Harry cast a couple of illusions to show them how large the creatures were, or to let them see how they moved and acted in real life. They were all shocked by how huge the trolls were and the hag Harry conjured looked a bit too much like Umbridge for anyone’s comfort.

All the while, Harry was keeping little mental tabs on how each child performed, he considered keeping a written note as well so that, when Snape finally took the class back, they would know how well each child had done.

He showed them the Verdimillious charm as well, to catch their interest, and told them to try and research it for the next lesson. Hopefully they would be able to have a couple of reviews in class time and perfect it within a fortnight.

One Slytherin, Barnabas Granville seemed to have been doing his research since the last lesson. He knew a lot more about the spells and creatures than he had before. Harry wished he could give out house points to his students.

A Gryffindor girl called Cartwright was amazing at the charms and Harry bet she was one of Flitwick’s favourites. Harry would have been fonder of her if she didn’t spend so much time chatting to Dawson, the boy who made lots of jokes.

Zabini minor from the Slytherin side was exceptionally good with the practical aspects of the spells, he also knew a lot of obscure theory but this seemed to come from family teaching and personal experience rather than information from a textbook. He was pretty reluctant to share anything, but anything he did attempt was close to perfect.

 

 

The class finished on a funny note. Goodwin- the Gryffindor girl that reminded Harry of Tonks- was trying to cast a focused Lumos Solem. She was attempting to cast a narrow beam which could be used against Devil’s Snare. What she actually achieved was a bright burst of sunlight which dazed everyone for a few minutes so that they all had to cover their eyes and sit down so that they could see again. The class seemed to see this as a fairly normal occurrence- probably in the same way Harry’s potions class already had a firmly ingrained mental protocol for protecting themselves from Neville’s melting cauldrons. So the class laughed it off as a fairly safe accident.

The class left the room cheerfully and mostly with fairly impressive tans. Harry just counted himself lucky that nobody had been blinded or badly sunburnt. He collapsed into one of the seats and buried his face in his hands as the door closed behind the last student.

Except it didn’t.

“Are you planning on starting a business, Mr Potter?” Three guesses who. “I am sure there are plenty of people- purebloods and muggleborns alike who would pay for that look.”

Harry groaned and lifted his head to see Snape walk past him.

“Although they would probably prefer their tans to spread past their robe collars.”

 

“Just a little too much power in a Lumos Charm, professor.” Harry answered. “Is it that bad?”

Snape smirked, “You have probably started a new wave of fashion. Who was it cast the spell?”

“Goodwin, she’s a Gryffindor.”

“Ah, of course. We shall have to make sure she doesn’t blow anybody up trying to emulate the effects.”

Harry nodded, “It was a pretty intense light: she could blind someone. I did warn her but it might not be enough if Lavender Brown or Parkinson find out.”

Snape shrugged, “It’s nothing Poppy Pomfrey couldn’t fix. The fright might teach them a lesson.”

Harry bit his lip. It would probably not help his case if he started on how unethical that was.

 

The professor picked one of the student chairs and moved it so he could sit facing Harry.

“Sir?”

Snape took a deep breath, this might have been the first time Harry saw him uncertain of how to start a conversation with a student.

“Tell me all of the Dark spells you have used. I need to know each spell, each incantation as well as when you cast it and who on.”

Or maybe not. That was pretty comprehensive. Oh dear.

“Sir- I don’t… Not…”  Harry breathed for a second, mostly to stop himself stammering like an idiot.

“Get on with it, Potter. You are not leaving until I am satisfied with your answers.”

“Sectumsempera, you know about. That’s the only time I’ve cast it.”

Snape narrowed his eyes, “What else?”

“Nothing at school, sir.”

The black eyes got even sterner. There probably wasn’t any point in stalling.”

“Potter, I know you cast Sectumsempra, I want you to tell me whatever dark spells you have cast. Whether it be in headquarters, Diagon Alley or anywhere else. If you continue to waste my time…”

Harry nodded, dejected. “I blew up my aunt before third year, si-“

“Potter! You know that was not dark magic and I know that the Minister for Magic did not tell you that ‘you have to mean’ dark magic. That is a saying among a certain kind of wizard. Who did say that, and why did you curse them?!”

Harry gave up. A ‘certain kind of wizard’ probably meant the death eaters. He suspected the man was quite close to using Legilimency by now. Nobody would acuse Snape of being patient.

“I used a dark curse on Bellatrix Lestrange in the Ministry last year. The first time hardly anything happened.”

“The first?”

“I cast it twice. It… it didn’t work the first time. Didn’t work very well the second either…”

“What was it?”

Harry looked down and mumbled the answer. Snape made an impatient noise, showing that he hadn’t heard him.

“The Cruciatus, sir.” Harry repeated, barely louder

There was silence for a moment. Harry thought he might have managed to surprise the teacher for once, but Harry couldn’t look up at him to check. He focussed his attention on running his fingers along the scratches etched into the table instead, tracing the decades old graffiti of ‘FW loves DC’ over and over. He bit his lip.

“Potter,” Snape stopped, “Mr Potter, that does go a way towards explaining the effectiveness of the curse you used on Mr Malfoy. Normally you would have not caused so much damage- especially not on a first attempt.”

Harry nodded, still not looking up.

“It is perhaps a good thing that you are only using a little magic at the moment. I would like you to attempt to keep from using the darker grey spells especially. That means no duels in the corridors. Do you understand me? And none of your… extracurricular defence classes either.”

“Yes, sir.” Harry’s voice crackled.

“You understand why this is necessary?”

Harry nodded, and Snape turned his head away, sighing. “Of course you don’t. As I was attempting to tell your Defence class this afternoon, dark magic is addictive. I do not think you fully understand the implications here.”

“I do, professor.”

“Do you?” Snape’s voice was hard and Harry was hard put to meet his eyes. “Dark magic uses the wizard, Mr Potter, not the other way around. If I am right, then since you have used that spell, others have seemed more appealing to you. I expect that the Sectumsempra curse especially called to you. You had the urge to cast it for a long time before you did?” A pause, Harry didn’t deny it.

“Of course you did.” Snape closed his eyes wearily and rested his elbow on his desk, pinching the bridge of his long nose.

“Right, at least the Headmaster’s actions are a little more transparent now. He was starting to worry us a little.”

“Sir?”

“The Headmaster knows what he is doing. To you he may be appearing harsh but he has a sound basis for his actions. If he was aware of those Cruciatus curses then he will have anticipated this. Not only that but the Dark Lord has had a good deal of influence over your mind and there is nobody so deeply entrenched in the Dark Arts. He attempted to possess you last summer? And many dark curses have been used on you as well. Yes, there is little wonder you were being drawn in.”

“Sir, you’re saying that Professor Dumbledore thinks I’m… addicted?”

The black eyes rolled to look at the ceiling, “Yes, Potter. It does explain why he is trying to keep you from casting too many spells – it should prevent you from being tempted to use the wrong sort. Your removal from your house where you might have had the use of a small army of supporters. By being harsh towards the rest of the school, they should not look to you as a martyr. You have been removed from your potions class because of the influence you could have cultivated over Professor Slughorn. Although it was more likely to chastise you and provide the time for you to teach Defence.”

Harry blinked at him, trying to take this all in, “But why would he want me to teach anyone? I thought you said I shouldn’t have power over anyone, why would he put me in control of a class?”

“Defence spells are actually a natural antagonist to dark magic, as you should know. You were deliberately given this second year class because it is focussed on mainly defensive spells. They are all completely light. Not to mention there is a great deal of focus and determination necessary to teach. As you have no power to award detentions or take points away from the houses, you will have to learn control through personality and kindness instead of through force. Essentially, the Headmaster is attempting to improve your attitude and defences, while not allowing you to be corrupted into the Dark Arts.”

Harry bit his lip. Said like that in Snape’s calm, no-nonsense tone, Harry could almost see the logic behind Dumbledore’s decisions. He still felt a little hurt by the man though, the loss of his invisibility cloak especially affected him. He had so few of his parents’ possessions…

 “Sir, what about the Latin lessons? They seem a little pointless.” Snape growled, “No, no, wait, sorry! I just meant, they don’t fit in with everything else.”

“I expect the lessons are to give me the opportunity to keep an eye on you, to prevent you from getting into mischief in the evenings and to actually teach you Latin. It is a language that has many benefits for Hogwarts students.”

“Professor Snape,” Harry paused for a second, unsure of whether to continue or not. Probably he should stop now. “Sir, Malfoy was going to use a dark curse. That was why I cursed him first. I know- I know it sounds like I’m trying to get off the hook, and I’m not, honestly! It’s just that, if I could be addicted, then so could he, right?”

Snape was silent for a minute, his face a blank mask as always. Finally, slowly, he began to speak.

“Mr Potter, I will speak with Professor Dumbledore about this. It may be that Mr Malfoy has not actually cast any dark magic yet and you misinterpreted the situation.”

Harry’s heart dropped, Snape didn’t believe him.

“Potter, you aren’t listening to me! Even if that is the case, we shall have to speak with him about it. It is possible he is tempted by the idea. Blind suspicion does not however give you any right to confront him again, do you understand me?”

“I understand, Professor.”

“Good. Under the circumstances, as I am certain you would agree, I believe it would be appropriate for you to write double the assignment I set in class today. You may borrow the books from the teacher’s shelf if you wish, do not damage them or I shall have them re-bound with your skin.”

Ah, the Snape Harry knew and loved. Harry thought he had been overly understanding this afternoon.

“Thank you.”

Snape swept out of the room and Harry collected a pile of texts to help him with his homework, spreading them out over the teacher’s desk and writing out a basic plan as he saw Hermione do before each essay. He did not want Snape to think he wasn’t serious about this. He sighed at the title, before copying it down at the head of his essay parchment.

Addiction and Withdrawal in Regards to the use of the Dark Arts.

Harry was nervous walking into the great hall that evening. He wasn’t sure if he was ready to talk to Dumbledore yet, and he was absolutely certain that he wasn’t in the best state to talk to Malfoy.

 As he made his way past some whispering third years on the Ravenclaw table, Harry saw Professor McGonagall get up out of her seat and make her way into the room behind the staff. Just as he started climbing the steps to the dais, she emerged, followed by Malfoy, Snape and Dumbledore. The Gryffindor and Slytherin heads took their seats and Dumbledore walked up to his podium. Malfoy hovered to the side, looking awkward and uncomfortable.  The hall went silent and Harry froze where he was, unwittingly mirroring Malfoy.

“You will have noticed” Dumbledore’s voice boomed out through the room, echoing slightly, “that over the past few days, this school has been a different place. Fights have broken out and an absurd amount of studets have been truant from classes. Students have been rude to professors and staff and more detentions have been handed out in the last three days than have been given in any term in the last hundred years! ” His eyes swept the four tables and students looked down at their empty plates, or fiddled with cutlery to avoid his accusing gaze.

“Professor McGonagall has informed me that she is implementing a trial over the next fortnight whereby any student who can earn twenty points for their house will have one detention deducted, provided that they have served a minimum of three detentions from today. Hopefully this will encourage some of you to stop this ridiculous new behaviour.”

There was a long, silent moment as everyone absorbed this.

Harry was glad that the staff had decided to give their pupils the chance to earn back some free time. Constricting them any further might have brought on a full revolt like the one employed against Umbridge by Fred and George’s dramatic exit the year before. And twenty points was a reasonable goal, it would only take a few of days of hard work. House points would skyrocket if the idea was popular- and they needed the boost, the points were lower now than they had been since the first week of September.

“As most of you know by now,” the headmaster continued, “This was all sparked by a duel between two of our sixth year students.” Dumbledore raised his hands to gesture towards Harry and Draco on either side of him. Harry was worried to see that there was roughly the same number of Gryffindors and Slytherins looking at him like he was the wrong end of a blast ended skrewt.

“Both students showed an extreme lack of maturity and control by engaging in this fight.” Hardly childish, Harry thought. Most children didn’t wander around with those kinds of curses on the tip of their tongues. Dumbledore turned his head slightly so he was looking at Harry and dozens of others from the crowd followed the movement. Harry reflexively tugged his fringe down so that it hid his scar.

“They recognise this… folly and have been awarded punishment. As such they have been removed from their houses and have lost their prefectship and quiddich captain positions. For the remainder of the year, instead of those duties, they have agreed to take on roles as assistant to a Professor.”

Harry hadn’t realised he was supposed to be an assistant, he thought he was just supposed to take his two classes. Maybe that explained why Snape was being so oddly – well, helpful, at the moment. He wondered who Malfoy was going to help, maybe Slughorn.

There were a few murmurs from the house tables, Harry watched Zacharias Smith lean over to the Ravenclaw table to say something to Michael Corner. He could even hear what the boy was saying above the other voices.

“Yeah, he says they’ve been punished. What sort of punishment is getting their own room and getting help from all the teachers? They probably aren’t even getting detentions, Potter’s getting extra lessons.”

“Thank you, Mr Smith.” Harry could hear Smith clearly, obviously Dumbledore had as well. “I can assure you that your classmates have a lot less free time than you, and many more restrictions on what they are permitted to do with that time. If you feel you are not receiving enough work from your professors, I am certain they will oblige you with more.” Smith looked comically shocked at being singled out but nobody smiled or laughed as they would normally have done.

“He’s got a point though. Don’t look at me like that!” Harry was amazed that the shrill voice of Pansy Parkinson came from the Slytherin table at full volume. Half of the hall had turned in their seats to see her standing in her place.

“Miss Parkinson?”

“If it had been anyone apart from your perfect chosen one, they would have been expelled in a moment and everyone knows it!”

“As I presume you can see, Miss Parkinson, there are two students here. I think you will find they are being treated exactly the same.”

Pansy made a scornful noise and sat down again, whatever had prompted her to defend her housemate had run out.

Dumbledore turned to Harry and signalled that he should come closer to the podium. Swallowing his nerves, he did. He could hear his breath magnified by some charm as he approached.

“So, um… as you’ve been told I was involved in a fight with Mal… erm Draco.” Malfoy shot him an irritated look, he probably should have stuck with the surname. “He got hurt pretty badly and I really regret it, and what happened afterwards with the rest of the school too, but I’m not really sure what happened to be honest.” Harry heard the unmistakable sigh of Snape’s exasperation. “And I’m going to be helping with Defence so if you need help and you’re not doing NEWTS or anything, give me a shout.”

He gave up there and shrugged, turning to Malfoy. He offered his hand,

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Malfoy didn’t move for a second but he looked over Harry’s shoulder at Dumbledore. Almost convulsively, he grasped Harry’s hand for a moment before letting go. It twitched at his side as if he wanted to wipe his palm on his robes.

The blond stepped up to the lectern for his apology.

“I duelled Mr Potter on Wednesday night and was injured. I am sorry for this misjudgement and for the following disruption to the school. I will be assisting Professor McGonagall if anyone below OWL level requires extra assistance in Transfiguration.”

Dumbledore dismissed them both to their seats which were at opposite ends of the staff table, Harry was in his usual place next to Filch and Draco was sitting next to Hagrid now. Harry wasn’t sure which of the four of them was most disgusted by the arrangement.

“Eloquent as always, Potter.” Madame Hooch chuckled, leaning past Filch. Harry grimaced back, compared to Malfoy, he knew that he sounded like a ghoul trying to speak in senntences.

 “Shame there’s no quiddich this weekend, I suppose when there’s only one second year who is allowed to play, it wouldn’t have been much of a match.”

“Could you put on a mini match for the first and second years? Everyone else is going to be in detention anyway. You could switch them in and out on the school brooms. They never get a chance to play on the real pitch after all. None of them even get a quiddich game unless they make the team.”

He wasn’t sure where the idea had come from. It had just jumped, fully formed from his head. His mind started whirring with how it could work, after all, most of the first years didn’t know that much about the sport.

Hooch looked thoughtful, then disappointed, “I am supposed to be taking detentions though.”

“If everyone was in one place, you wouldn’t need so many staff to supervise everyone else. You could make everyone with detention clean the stands or fix up some of the older brooms.”

Madame Hooch had a gleam in her eye, “Are you free tomorrow, Potter?”

“Sorry Professor, I promised to help Professor Snape. Ginny Weasley has detention but I think she would be a great help. You might want to look out the counter for the Bat-Bogey Hex if she’s refereeing though.”

Hooch nodded enthusiastically, “No need, Potter. I refereed matches between the Holyhead Harpies and the Vratsa Vultures back in my prime.” She turned away from him to shout the idea to McGonagall past a visibly disinterested Trelawney, Burbage and Snape.

Harry felt something brush against his ankle and looked down to see the caretaker’s cat watching him.

“Does Mrs Norris like salmon?” Harry asked.

“Not if it comes from you Potter. Stay away from my cat.”

Harry nodded and started to pick his way through the fish. The staff table had considerably more cutlery than he was used to and he was certain he was using the wrong ones for everything. He hoped nobody was looking.

 

The staff room was, if possible, busier than it had been the day before. Immediately after pouring out the tea (and leaving a pot of coffee out for whenever Snape turned up) Harry was dragged to one side by McGonagall and Hooch to explain the quiddich idea.

“Don’t split it up by house, there’s enough division there as it is. You could try doing it the muggle way by splitting them randomly. Then give them a number, you could have two or three seekers for each side and a couple of keepers, about six chasers and then there’s beaters, do you want beaters?”

They both gave him a look.

“Okay, so no beaters. Every five minutes, they could all switch round. That way they’ll spend most time as a chaser, and get a fairly long turn at everything else too. Then you could have a couple of people resting at a time as well. Anyone who was desperate to not fly could keep score or act as a commentator or something like that.”

“Which older students would you suggest to help?”

Harry frowned, “I know Professor Snape is taking a few people for something else. Ginny, would enjoy it, Katie Bell would if she’s feeling up to it. Maybe Seamus. Neville would be good as long as you keep him on the ground”

“Anyone from the other houses, Minerva?” Hooch asked, “Mr Finnegan is not the most reliable flier, and Longbottom would probably manage to break something even if we tie him to the stands.”

“Rolanda, behave.” Professor Sprout turned in her seat to glare at the flying instructor, “In any case, Mr Longbottom will be assisting me in the morning, Severus suggested he help me supervise the detentions in the greenhouses and I quite agree.”

That was a good move on Snape’s part, Harry thought, he had managed to make sure that Neville was as far away from any potential potions ingredients and also that he didn’t offend Sprout when he did so.

“Mr Summerby from my house would enjoy this little venture of yours Rolanda. You might consider Mr Smith as well but he does have an unfortunate habit of making rather inflammatory remarks.”

“You could say that.” McGonagall scoffed.

Harry started standing up, contemplating getting himself another drink and almost died of fright as Professor Flitwick appeared at his side. He dropped his mug and only just caught it before it hit the ground, unfortunately his knee smacked into the ground, hard. He stood up, trying to rub some feeling back into it. He tried to ignore the applause coming from the three witches behind him.

“Sorry, can I help you, Sir?” Harry asked Flitwick who seemed to have mostly escaped being showered in tea.

“Do come over here for a moment, Potter. Severus was just explaining your newest idea.”

Harry followed him to the other side of the room, filling his cup on the way.

“Sit down, sit down,” Flitwick said, pointing to a tall, dark leather chair.

“I think that’s Professor Snape’s sir, I can just bring…” Harry had turned to get his, but could see from here that it had been taken by the Astronomy teacher. He did not want to take Snape’s seat but Flitwick was looking at him expectantly.

“Filius, stop torturing the boy.” Snape appeared beside Harry who jumped but held onto his mug this time. “Potter, this coffee is too weak.”

“It’s been sitting for ten minutes,” Harry said, “It probably needed a stir first”

Snape’s eyes narrowed, “Of course I stirred it. I am a potions master, do you think I do not know when to stir coffee?”

Through sheer force of will Harry managed to not roll his eyes.

“Now, now boys. We were going to talk about Potter’s idea. Here,” Flitwick made a complicated movement with his wand and the leather chair grew wider and wider until there was a loud squelching noise and the chair split into two identical chairs. Snape gave Harry a look which told him that he would rather sit on a purple pouffe than matching chairs, but that they would put up with it for a short while.

“Which idea, Sir? Quiddich?” Harry didn’t think that Flitwick had ever been particularly interested in the sport.”

“No Potter, this shared homework idea you’ve had. I wasn’t sure about how well it would work practically but Severus says you are certain they won’t copy off each other.”

Harry bit his lip, “I don’t think it would matter if they did, Professor. The whole idea is that they have to think about what they would do if they actually were in that situation. They’re all slightly different, each group of four has a scenario with four different things to face- Vampires, Werewolves, Banshees and Ghouls. And then all the people in the same group have the same location.” Snape looked a little confused. “So one group has Hogwarts, another their own home, the Hogwarts express, Diagon Alley- places like that. Do you see? So they can work together on some parts but they will have to deal with the bulk of it by themselves. And this way, they have to learn everything anyway. I thought I might give a prize for the best group and best individual in each class.”

The teachers looked interested and a couple of those who had been eavesdropping on the conversation were more obvious about it. There was a quiet squeaking as the Arithmancy professor shuffled themselves and their chair into the corner beside them.

“What are you going to give as prizes?” Somebody asked.

Harry shrugged, “I’m friends with a couple of house elves in the kitchens, I think one of them might be able to get me a couple of cakes- maybe something they don’t normally make at Hogwarts.” There were nods of agreement, there wouldn’t be much point giving a prize anyone could nick from the kitchens.

Snape shifted in his seat suddenly, “While we have the attention of so many of you, who has the money for the pool on Potter.” The man was almost smiling.

“Which one?” Sprout asked.

Harry blinked at her, “What do you mean, ‘which one’?” Everyone was looking over now.

Snape just ignored him, “The permission slip. Do you imagine Pomona, we had a heart to heart about who Potter’s first kiss is going to be?”

“Oh, I’ve got the permission slip money!” Professor Sinistra shouted from next to the fireplace, she started rummaging in her book bag.

“I’ve had my first kiss.” Harry said to himself, confused and slightly offended.

“Oh, who was it dear?” Madame Pomfrey asked Harry hadn’t even seen her come in.

“Um, Cho? Last year,” he murmured.

“I said so! I told you all!” Professor Flitwick jumped up out of his seat and rushed over to Sprout who pulled a small pile of Galleons out of her robe pocket.

“As I was saying,” Snape shouted, “I won the pool. Filius would you sit down?”

Professor McGonagall looked sceptical. “Are you sure it was permission to be up after curfew. We covered this before, it doesn’t count if you gave him access to the restricted section. And he had to ask before the bell actually rings!”

“Yes, I am sure. I was well aware of the conditions.” He was sulking now.

McGonagall turned to Harry, “Why him of all people? He’s going to be so insufferable about it. Do you know how much money was in that, Potter?”

“Um, no?” Harry said, still overwhelmed.

“Most staff members put in ten Galleons, some of us put in more than that.”

Snape smirked, “Lupin put in five sickles in as the entry, and Minerva backed him for the rest providing he split it with her. That fool Lockhart put in forty galleons.

“Here we go!” Sinistra called, pulling a large, clinking bag across the room with her. “Three hundred and twenty six galleons, 13 sickles and eighteen knuts. There’s also a bottle of Elf wine, some liquorice and some sugar quills.”

Harry stared as Snape hefted the bag onto his lap and started to rake through the piles of coins.

“Sir, isn’t that about a thousand pounds?”

“It’s closer to sixteen hundred actually. Would you like…” Snape counted quickly under his breath, “seven sugar quills?”

There was a moment of silence as the grumbling stopped.

“Sure, why not?”

Snape tossed them into Harry’s lap and he opened one, packing the rest away for later.

Harry stayed for another quarter of an hour, listening to McGonagall fight with Professor Babbling over whether any of Trelawney’s predictions actually ever came true. He was about to leave so that he could dump some of his bags before his detention when Professor Flitwick spoke up to the room at large.

“I have had a large increase in enquiries about the Lumos Solem charm today, did somebody bring it up in their lesson?”

“Not in my class,” Professor Slughorn said, “But has anybody else seen the number of second years wandering around looking like they fell headfirst into a vat of Mrs Icara’s Patented Skin Toner? I wondered if somebody had been trying to brew it themselves.”

“I can’t say that I have,” Madame Pomfrey said, “The only person I have seen since Mr Malfoy left was Miss Brown from Gryffindor with some fairly bad sunburn, odd for March, don’t you think?”

Harry turned bright red, McGonagall shot him a curious look and Snape was giving him a smug one. Harry watched Snape open his mouth, knew he was going to be ratted out and lost his nerve. Abandoning his mug, he shot out of his chair and made his escape, dropping apologies on the way out. As the door closed behind him he heard a sound which astonished him.

Severus Snape was Laughing.

 

The Latin detention was as painful as the previous one had been. The room was once again full. The entirety of the sixth year was there now, Ron and Draco having turned up at 7 o’clock with everyone else. Surprisingly, Ron was placed with the Latin group.

Snape set Malfoy the same essay they had been given in class that afternoon. He was given a pile of books and looked almost happy until Snape informed him that it should be written entirely in Latin. With a small groan, Malfoy opened a text and started to write.

Most of the students were given essays, before Snape came back to Harry and the group who knew some Latin. He summoned some textbooks from his desk and sorted them into a new order.

“Until a hundred and fifty years ago, most classes at Hogwarts were taught in Latin. As you will have noticed if any of you spent half the time in the library that you should have, many of our older texts are in this language. As practice, you will each begin to translate a book to the best of your ability. That might encourage you to use better references in your essays occasionally.” He started walking along the lines of desks, dropping a different tome onto each with a bang. Ron grumbled at the minuscule size of the writing in his. 

“You will each translate the first chapter this evening, it is marked out for you. This should be possible within in the next three hours or you will explain to me why it is not completed. Get started.”

Snape was back at his table at the front of the room where Harry was waiting.

“Ok Potter, let’s make a start then.” The last book was a heavy looking Latin primer.

“The headmaster assures me that this is the best way to go about this. I have my doubts but we will persevere nonetheless.”

“Is this actually his, Sir? It looks old enough.”

Snape gave it a doubtful look. “It might well be,” he said, “The man does have a ridiculous number of books.”

Snape flipped it open, “Get out your quill then, Potter. We haven’t got all night.”

“This is a muggle book, we will have to cover the wizarding parts of the language separately.”

 

 

Finally they stopped for the night, a long time after Harry had stopped being able to take in what he was being taught. He could tell he was starting to bluff more and more of his answers and one of Snape’s hands was gripping the table hard as he tried to keep his temper for long enough to explain the next point.

There had been a tense moment half an hour ago when one of the Ravenclaws had obviously been listening in and couldn’t contain his exasperation at Harry’s slowness. Anthony Goldstein had shouted the sentence that Harry had mistranslated three times. Then, of course, Snape had shouted at him and - to general surprise and confusion – sent the boy to stand in a corner.

“You what?” Anthony asked, incredulous.

“Mr Goldstein, you have about twenty hours of detention left to complete, Ravenclaw house is down to its last fifty points and I have no patience left. You were all warned to not speak in this detention, so go!”

The last two words had been shouted and Anthony walked shakily off to the nearest corner and hadn’t moved until the bell rang for the end of detention.

Everyone disappeared fast, Anthony, his face bright red, leading the way. Malfoy waited until almost everyone had gone before packing away his things and handing in his essay. He looked like he might speak to Snape for a moment but the man shook his head and Draco left without saying a word to anybody.

When Lavender Brown came up to hand in her essay on Protean charms, Harry and Snape made eye contact over the top of her distinctly burnt hand and they both looked away quickly.

Harry was last to leave apart from Snape and as the teacher seemed to be heading back to his classroom they reluctantly walked together.

 

“Professor, can I ask why Malfoy is tutoring transfiguration?”

“You can ask.”

Harry thought that was all he was going to get so didn’t ask anything else. It wasn’t until they were on the grand staircase that Snape spoke again.

“Mr Malfoy’s wand was checked for dark magic and evidence was found of a dark spell being cast at some point. He told us something of why he cast it and Dumbledore believed he might benefit in the long term from a similar treatment to yours. Specifically he is doing Transfiguration because it is his best subject.”

“So you’re going to detox him from dark magic just before sending him home for the summer? Fat lot of good that’s going to do! He’s going to go straight back home and…”

“We aren’t certain it would be appropriate for Mr Malfoy to return to his family home.” Snape said, watching dispassionately as Harry tripped over a trick step. “Professor Dumbledore is considering offering his support and the protection that Hogwarts can offer.”

Harry stopped at the step he was on. “So Malfoy’s going to get to stay here in the summer? How is that fair? He’s been casting dark magic before we even get into any fight and I told Dumbledore about it and then after everything, suddenly it’s all my fault. And I still have to go back to the Dursley’s! Why the hell is Dumbledore mad at me and not him?”

Snape spun around and grabbed him by the arms. He shook Harry.

“Potter, would you shut up for one minute and try to not sound like such a spoilt, arrogant little brat.  I know you find that difficult, but just pretend for a moment.”

Harry blinked at him, Snape was two steps down and Harry still had to look up.

“Good. Stop being jealous of Malfoy, it is ridiculous in a child your age. Whatever problems you do have at the moment, be sure that you are not as special as you obviously think you are. Others are struggling in these times too. As to your obvious craving for the Headmaster’s attention; Professor Dumbledore sees that Mr Malfoy has always been a sort of tarnished silver. You however were always his golden boy and he has just noticed you are corroding. You should not be surprised that he is disappointed.”

Snape watched him for a second to see if the message had sunk in, he must have been fairly satisfied because he started walking back downstairs again.

“We will talk again tomorrow. Meet me outside the staffroom at 9 o’clock tomorrow and make sure you are wearing old clothes. I will get permission from the headmaster for you to use your wand in the chamber as well so do bring it with you.”

“Yes Sir.”

“Don’t skip breakfast either, it would be ridiculous if you fainted and we all got stuck down there for hours because of your poorly developed concept of punctuality. You will have plenty of time to finish your homework this weekend.”

“Yes, I’ll be there. Are you sure you’re feeling alright, Professor?”

Snape was acting very un-snapelike all of a sudden but the question still earned Harry a look.

“Don’t be rude, boy.”

They had finally reached the defence classroom.

“Goodnight then, Professor.”

Snape grunted, “Curfew is in two minutes.”

Harry dashed down the corridor without looking back. He arrived panting at the portrait to his room.

“Ron knows Latin well enough to translate a three hundred year old textbook on the Herbology and Magical History of Snargaluff plants without a dictionary.”

The snake swung open,

“The Weasley boy? That is unexpected.”

Harry ignored it and climbed through into his room. He collapsed on his bed for five minutes before forcing himself to sit back up and take out his homework. As tired as he was, he had three essays and now Latin work to do and whatever Snape said, he wasn’t certain he had enough time to finish them all.

 

 

 The instant Harry entered the hall at quarter past 8 on Saturday morning, he was mobbed by small children. The first one that arrived barrelled into him so strongly that he had to grab hold of the door to keep himself upright.

 

“Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you! I love quiddich. That was the best idea ever!”

When he was sure that he wasn’t going to be knocked to the floor by any of the others crowding around him, Harry managed to focus on the ginger bomb that had attacked him.

“Riley, is that you?”

“It is Riley.” Someone else said, while the afro stayed firmly attached to his midsection and kept voicing its thanks. Harry looked down and saw Goodwin, the clumsy Gryffindor girl, looking grumpy with her hands deep in her robe pockets. “McGonagall came into the House last night and told us about your quiddich idea, thanks a lot.”

Harry laughed, “It can’t be that bad, surely?”

“It is for her.” Barnabas Granville had turned up. “She drops everything normally. You don’t want to see her on a broom.”

“Maybe you could try commentating,” Harry suggested, he could only imagine how cross Hermione would have been if she was forced into compulsory flying with the rest of the year. It was hard enough trying to convince her to fly at the Burrow.

“Do we have to have cats on our brooms when we play? I only have a toad, see.” That was the vampire girl, Harry couldn’t quite remember her name – Jackson or something.

“Um, no.” Harry said, “That would be a bad idea.”

“So should I borrow a cat?” she asked

“Hermione Granger has one, Jacks, and she’s going to be in detention. You could take hers!”

“Dawson, no! Miss Jacks, you do not need an animal on your broom when you play quiddich and do not try to pick up Crookshanks under any circumstance!”

“But the Worst Witch had to fly with a cat!”

“Nobody in their right mind would try to fly their broom with an animal that wasn’t in a cage, and you shouldn’t be mean about girls in your year.”

She looked at him blankly for a moment, “Mildred Hubble isn’t in our year.”

“That doesn’t mean you can call her names.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

“Does anybody know how to detach Riley? I want my breakfast.”

“Potter, could you move your fan club out of the doorway? Some of us want to eat.”

The second years disbanded instantly, Professor Snape had that effect on people. They all murmured their thanks before heading over to their tables, instantly chattering again once they had reached a safe distance. Harry didn’t know how they could be so awake this early in the day. Surely he had never been that much of a morning person?

“Thank you, Professor.” Harry said, following Snape towards the staff table, “They’re a bit overexcited this morning.”

 They walked around the back of the table now, Harry was surprised to see the Filch was sitting in Harry’s usual chair. Now that he was looking properly, lots of the teachers had moved to a different spot.

“Do try to keep your followers under control. You might put somebody off their breakfast. Minerva, you are in my seat.”

 “Severus, calm down. It’s the weekend, you can sit wherever you want. Why don’t you talk to Mr Malfoy? He looks quite lonely over there by himself.”

Harry glanced across, Malfoy did look quite morose. Hagrid wasn’t in the hall and neither were the next two teachers who should have been there so he was sitting far away from the rest of them. Snape scowled and marched over to one of the empty seats, causing the ex-Slytherin to drop his spoonful of Cheery Owls in surprise. They exchanged a few words and then got back to eating.

“Potter, if you are staying, would you sit down? We were just going over the final details for this morning. I take it that the mob by the door was your doing?”

Harry sat down between McGonagall and Sprout, picking out a piece of toast.

“Sorry Professor, it was just some of the second years. They said you’d decided to go ahead with it?”

She smiled, “Yes we have, it took a while to organise everything, so it’s your fault I didn’t get any marking done last night. I managed to recruit enough senior students to supervise the match and support Madame Hooch. For some reason, they seemed to prefer the idea to cleaning out the Weasley twins’ old workroom on the fourth floor.”

“That’s great.” Harry poured himself some pumpkin juice. “Is the room that bad?”

“I don’t really know,” She said, “There was an explosion before I could get the door open.”

Harry nodded, he wouldn’t have gone any further either.

A hand appeared between Harry and Professor Sprout, it pulled a small pile of hot toast from the rack and onto his plate. Harry looked up to see a scowling Snape.

“No fainting, Potter, I warned you. You might find it entertaining to trap people downstairs, but I assure you, I do not.”

McGonagall smiled innocently. “’Downstairs’, Severus?”

“Minerva, you know quite well what is happening, especially since you are accompanying us.”

Snape swept away and Harry tucked into his toast, hungrier now.

“Pomona, you are certain you will not join us?” The transfiguration teacher asked.

“No Minerva, I am quite alright. I have a lot of students to watch today and they are going to be more hyperactive than usual with everyone else away doing such exciting things. You are taking the older Creevey Boy with you aren’t you?”

“If he promises to not only take photographs of Mr Potter.”

“Well the boy has always had a bit of a crush. The photographs will be enough for me this time, thank you.”

“Colin Creevey has a crush on me?” Harry blurted.

“Potter, you really are oblivious.” McGonagall said, shaking out her copy of the Daily Prophet.

 

 

Harry was leaning against the wall outside the staffroom waiting for Snape to arrive. The gargoyles still didn’t trust him and refused to let him through since there wasn’t anyone else in there.

“Potter, you managed to be on time. Come on in.”

Snape held the door open for Harry to go through and indicated he should sit at the large table that was now occupying the middle of the room. Snape started to pull sheets of parchment out of his robes and put them out in piles on the table.

“Sir,” Harry said suddenly, unsure of what exactly was prompting him to ask, “Can you tell me which potion Umbridge asked you to use on me last year?”

Snape didn’t look up from what he was doing.

“Potter, I don’t have time for stupid games.”

“Could you just humour me, this once?”

“Potter, stop.”

Harry pulled his wand out of his pocket, “Please sir, I really need you to tell me.”

“Expelliarmus!”

Harry’s wand was torn out of his hand and rattled across the floor, the spell was so forceful that the boy would have been thrown backwards out of his seat, had Snape not already grabbed a handful of his jumper.

“Potter, I warned you not to attempt to attack me again!”

The door opened but Harry couldn’t see who it was with his back facing the door.

“Sir, please answer the question.”

Harry was eye-to-nose with Snape now and he could smell coffee on the man’s breath.

“Severus, he’s scared. For heaven’s sake, answer whatever he asked or let him go.” McGonagall’s tired voice came from just behind him. Harry relaxed a little when he heard it but Snape’s grip only tightened.

“He was pointing his wand at me Minerva!”

“Severus, let go!”

He didn’t.

“It was Veritaserum you were referring to, Potter, obviously, as I think you remember.” Snape hissed, “I informed her I had none left in my store but that I was happy to poison you if she wanted.”

Harry relaxed, it was Snape.

“Now sit down. I demand an explanation.” Snape let him go and Harry’s weak knees gave out, dropping him into his chair.

Harry put his head in his hands while McGonagall took the chair next to him and put a comforting hand on his arm.

“Potter, explain.”

Harry was embarrassed now he had been proved wrong.

“I-IthoughtyouwereunderPolyjuicepotionandIwantedtocheck…”

“What?” Both teachers spoke together, sharing a confused look.

“Um, I thought you were under Polyjuice potion and I wanted to check it out.”

“And you thought the best time to ask me was when we were alone and not when we were in the great hall where there would have been witnesses and teachers to back you up.”

“Er…”

McGonagall sat up with sudden understanding, “Of course! Severus, you remember being there when we found Crouch was Moody. It was in your office. No wonder he’s suspicious. Especially with your changed attitude and all this new information from the ministry about Polyjuice and glamours.”

“I don’t have a new attitude!”

“Yes you do,” Harry said. “Yesterday you made Anthony Goldstein stand in a corner for forty minutes!”

Snape rolled his eyes, “The staff reached an agreement to not let house points drop below 50 if it was at all possible, Ravenclaw only had that many points.”

“Yesterday, in here, you laughed.”

“It has been known to happen,” at McGonagall’s raised eyebrow he amended the statement, “I had just won three hundred Galleons, I was probably in shock.”

“This morning you made me eat breakfast.” Harry pointed out.

“Oh Merlin, is it so difficult to understand that I do not want to be stuck in Slytherin’s Chamber for the rest of my life?”

There was a moment where the two wizards just stared at each other, before they were surprised by the door opening again.

“I take it you sorted everything out then, Depute Headmistress?” Slughorn said as he made his way towards one of the seats on the other side of the table.

“Yes, Horace. I did. Just a little misunderstanding.”

“Good, good- onto business then,” said Flitwick. He jumped up onto a stool and pulled a pile of parchment towards himself.

Snape moved away and Harry retrieved his wand from the floor, sticking it back into his pocket.

“We’re still waiting for Poppy to arrive,” Snape said to McGonagall, taking his seat.

“Poppy said she might be late, but that all she needs is a list of who is going down and what she might expect in the way of injuries, from the chamber itself or from the ingredients.”

“All right then. Filius, can you make a list of which wards might be down there? Also we don’t know if the school protections are still working that deep so remind me to check them while we are down there; we don’t want to be leaving ourselves open to an attack in the future. Remember the Dark Lord has been down there before.”

Snape seemed to be in charge of the expedition. The others were nodding appropriately and McGonagall was writing on a sheet of parchment. While she was writing on one, everything appeared simultaneously on a whole stack of other pages. Harry wondered if he could convince Hermione to take her class notes with a similar quill.

 

“Horace, you have been researching basilisks for us, have you got everything we need to take with us?”

The man nodded and put two bags on the table. “Two basilisk proof first aid kits at your service! We can keep one above ground and one below. I even managed to get four vials of phoenix tears from Fawkes this morning, which is only to be used if venom pierces the skin. I would suggest that only members of staff handle the beast’s fangs.”

“Agreed,” Snape growled, looking purposefully at Harry.

“And there must always be one Professor who is not handling ingredients, who will be in control of the first aid kit. Poppy upstairs, of course and maybe Filius in the Chamber?”

“Not a problem,” the wizard squeaked.

“Excellent. You say the basilisk was blinded before it expired?”

Harry nodded. If anything, Slughorn looked a little disappointed.

“Yes, well, it couldn’t be helped I suppose. At any rate, there are restorative potions in the bags in case anybody is petrified, they are still effective. There are also potions for the expected small cuts and burns.”

“Burns, Horace?” McGonagall asked, weakly.

“Yes, basilisk rib bones have a nasty habit of catching fire when they lose contact with the blood, it’s very odd. Nobody seems to know quite why that should be, Herpo the Foul did have a theory that…”

“Is there anything else like that we need to know?” Snape was losing patience again.

“No, my boy, I think that’s it. There is an emergency portkey in the end of the bag though, it has a password; ‘bezoar’. We don’t know if it will work though, mystery wards and all that. So do try to not need it.”

Snape pinched his nose, “Right, that’s health and safety. We go straight there, we take the fiery bones and we come straight back. No detours.”

“He’s talking to you, Potter.” McGonagall nudged him jokingly.

Harry flushed, “I know. All of the rest of the chamber looked pretty flooded anyway.”

There was a loud pop and suddenly Dobby was standing at the top of the table.

“Hello Mr Professors and Miss Professor. Hello Harry Potter! It has been a long time since Harry Potter came to see Dobby. Dobby is being here for the important meeting at half past nine today.”

Harry heard a loud thud and was pretty sure it was the sound of Snape hitting his head off the table.

“Of course Potter knows the Malfoy’s old elf.” He was muttering, “Why would that be an odd thing? Potter probably knows everybody’s bloody elf.”

Harry looked around sheepishly. Everyone was looking at him again.

“This is the elf that cleans the staff room and the Gryffindor common room, Severus, it is not impossible that they met at Hogwarts” McGonagall said.

“Dobby is a free elf, Mr Professor, Sir. Dobby is being paid.”

Snape looked enraged, “Potter, that had better not be the house elf that stole my Gillyweed.”

“Um…”

 “Shut up.”

“Severus.”

“I thought this was the elf which was alleged to have cast that Hover charm at Mr Potter’s home a few years ago,” Flitwick said.

“Why do we need a house elf, Sir?” Harry blurted, trying to take control of the conversation before it turned to the subject of flying cars and bludgers and Dobby got into real trouble.

Snape gave him a look which showed him he wasn’t forgetting this conversation, before getting back to the task at hand.

“Dobby,” he said almost kindly for him, “We were wondering if it would be possible for elves to apparate into and out of the Chamber of Secrets.”

Dobby’s eyes got even rounder, “Dobby does not think so, sir, but Dobby has never tried.” He seemed to concentrate for a moment, clenching his fists and bending his knees a little. Flitwick looked fascinated. Dobby looked constipated.

There was silence for a long moment before the elf straightened up again, his ears drooping.

“Dobby is sorry, sir, he cannot do it.”

An idea struck Harry.

“Could it be because elves can’t speak parseltongue,” he asked suddenly.

The teachers looked at him.

“Why would that-?” Slughorn started.

“Potter is a Parselmouth,” Snape said. “It is one of his many talents.”

Slughorn looked startled and shot Harry a nervous look. Harry was a little offended, although he supposed he should have gotten over this reaction back in second year when the whole school had found out.

“I might be able to apparate down into the chamber, mightn’t I?”

 

There was silence before an explosion came from McGonagall and Snape simultaneously.

“Potter, you have not even finished your course on apparition. How could you possibly attempt to make it through two highly warded barriers?”

“Are you that desperate to splinch yourself? Never mind that it is illegal to attempt it without a licence.”

“You might end up anywhere, you could get the direction slightly wrong and wind up inside the giant squid!”

“You are absolutely forbidden to try this. You would not have to be the one to explain to the headmaster why we had to scrape pieces of you off the walls.”

“And how were you planning to break through the school wards, exactly? Do, please enlighten us.”

Harry blinked up at the two of them who had come to stand in front of him. He was reminded wildly of Mrs Weasley telling off her children. They were employing an odd mix of logic and volume against him.

Usually Snape reminded him of Uncle Vernon, he thought. Vernon’s tactic was to get very close and then project insults and spittle into Harry’s face. By now the man would have exhausted himself, tripped over his tongue and sent Harry away to his room. Then the meals stopped and the door locked for as long as it took for the housework to build up.

This was a little different, Snape especially was acting weirdly.

“Okay,” he said loudly, holding his hands up in surrender. “I won’t try it, I promise. It was only hypothetical.”

“Hypothetically,” Flitwick said with a mischievous look, “It might well work.”

The two angry professors turned on him in a flurry of green and black robes, each taking a deep breath, ready to continue the argument with the small Charms Professor.

Luckily though, the door opened and Madame Pomfrey stuck her head in.

“Are we ready to go?”

The two house heads deflated slightly and everyone else stood up. McGonagall gave out a copy of the notes she had taken to each of them. Thankfully she had only written down the important points and there wasn’t any record of Dobby other than he wasn’t able to help them. Harry hoped that by the time they had finished and everybody was reading over the notes again, they would have forgotten about the elf.

 

 

There was a small crowd of students looking uncomfortable outside moaning Myrtle’s bathroom. The ghost herself was nowhere to be seen though and Harry was glad about that. The last time he had been here was the fight with Malfoy.

“Mr Potter,” McGonagall said quietly. “I expect Severus hasn’t warned you, but there are going to be quite a few Slytherin students on this expedition. He has assured me that they will behave down there. He seemed quite offended that I should ask actually.”

Harry nodded, thinking privately that McGonagall would be more than ‘slightly offended’ if Snape had asked her the same thing of her Gryffindors. “That’s fine, Professor.”

“Good,” she said. “Then you won’t mind Mr Malfoy coming along as well.” She strode into the bathroom after the other professors and Harry didn’t have much choice but to follow them in. This would be the first time he had been inside the bathroom since his fight with Malfoy, he wasn’t entirely sure he was ready.

 

The bathroom was tidier than Harry had ever seen it. The smashed mirrors and broken stalls had been replaced or fixed and there wasn’t even any water on the floor.

Looking around at the other students Snape had decided to bring along, there were a lot of Slytherins. Nott, Zabini and Malfoy were all standing in a group, talking to each other and leaning against the wall. They had two seventh years with them, Vaisey and a girl with red hair. Hermione was here as well, she was talking to Colin Creevey and Anthony Goldstein. Anthony looked very confused about being here, and more than a little apprehensive when Snape walked past him but Harry vaguely remembered that the Ravenclaw was near to the top of the class in Potions.

There were a few people Harry didn’t know, a few seventh year Hufflepuffs and a couple more Ravenclaws who looked extremely excited. When Harry walked past, they were talking about potions which could be made with these ingredients which hadn’t been created for centuries.

“All right, everyone pay attention!” Snape called. “Do all of you know what your role will be today?” There were a few nods but not from everyone.

“Slytherins and Gryffindors will be going down to harvest the carcass. Our Hufflepuffs will be bringing them back into this bathroom and Ravenclaws will assist Professor Slughorn with proper preparation and the safe long-term storage of the ingredients.”

Snape turned to Harry, “Mr Potter, if you would.”

Harry nodded, his mouth suddenly dry. He knelt down in front of the tap with the snake scratched into it.

“Open,” he said.

There was a disbelieving silence from behind him. Nothing moved.

“Damn, was that English?”

“Potter, you had better not be messing-“

Harry fixated on the snake again, imagining it moving, twisting around the tap. Focussed, he tried again, “Open.”

This time it worked. The taps split open the same way they had four years ago and the sink sank down, revealing the wide pipe behind it.

“Alright! That is so awesome!”

Everyone turned around to look at Nott, who had spoken. He just shrugged at the attention.

“It is cool. Come on, all the Gryffindors get is a stupid sword.”

McGonagall looked offended and was possibly about to say something when she heard a noise behind her. Spinning around, she was just in time to see Harry climbing into the mouth of the pipe. Snape had seen too.

“Potter, don’t you dare!” He dived to pull the boy back, but just missed.

“Professors?” Hermione said, they all looked at her. “Harry and Ron did that last time too. They said it was pretty gross at the bottom, but I don’t think there’s a huge drop or anything.”

“He could have warned us,” Snape fumed, starting to climb into the pipe. “Everyone come down one at a time, I will whistle when it is clear. Minerva come last and see if that blasted house elf is any use.” He disappeared too.

McGonagall looked at the waiting pupils, “Who is going first?”

Theodore Nott jumped up and down on the spot with his hand in the air as his housemates watched, appalled. “Me, me! Please pick me!”

 

 

Down in the chamber, Harry had lit his wand and was looking around to see what had changed down there. It wasn’t very different to how he remembered, there was still a fairly intact shed skin, and the piles of bones looked a little dustier but that was it. The collapsed roof still had a small gap at the top, but Harry thought that even Professor Flitwick would struggle to get through it now.

He heard noises behind him and wondered who was coming down first. Someone had shouted his name when he set off but he hadn’t been able to stop to see what the rest of them were waiting for.

His question was answered when Snape suddenly flew out of the pipe and made a very ungraceful landing in a pile of long dead rat bones. Harry rushed over to help him up and found himself with an index finger in front of his nose. He stayed very still while Snape caught his breath.

“Potter,” he said, breathing heavily. “You had better be thankful that I don’t have any cauldrons left for you to scrub! Do you try to give us heart attacks on purpose? Why did you not wait for us to decide on the best way to get down here? We were going to see if that elf of yours could make it down here when you had opened the door, you foolish child.”

Harry shrugged, “It’s the same thing we did last time, Professor. I didn’t think there’d be any problem.”

“You jumped headfirst down here even when you knew you were going to find a deadly snake, a possible dead body and the Dark Lord?”

“Well, we pushed Lockhart down first and he was okay. And we didn’t know it was going to be Voldemort,” Harry said.

“The idiot probably managed to land on his head,” Snape muttered. He had drawn his wand and cast a couple of spells. Harry recognised one of them from their last Defence lesson. It was used to look for dark curses which were attached to objects. Glancing around, Harry couldn’t see anything giving off the pink glow which should indicate affected objects.

When the man was satisfied, he pulled a whistle out of his pocket and played a couple of notes. After a couple of seconds there was an answering call and Snape conjured a large mattress and placed it roughly where he had landed.

“Sir, I think I flew further than that.”

Snape grunted and extended the mattress, “It wouldn’t be a good idea to break our charms professor so close to the exams, but I don’t think anyone else is as scrawny as you are.”

There was a loud high pitched noise and a blur shot out of the mouth of the tunnel between the two of them. Something large hit the mattress before bouncing to its feet, fists punching the air.

“Oh yeah! That was so awesome, I have to try that again. It’s even better than the Gringotts ride!”

“Mr Nott, are you quite done?”

Nott seemed to suddenly notice he was standing with the Head of his house and Harry Potter. He brushed some dust off his robes and stopped bouncing around. Almost instantly he turned into the serious, smart boy Harry was used to seeing in classes.

“Sorry Professor, it won’t happen again.”

Harry smirked as the boy caught sight of the basilisk skin and obviously had to work hard to prevent himself from jumping straight over to it, and to instead walk over to it at a leisurely pace.

Snape rolled his eyes and blew the whistle again, as a signal to send the next person down.

Soon enough all the Slytherins were down in the first chamber with Harry, who by then felt quite outnumbered. They all looked really interested, poking around in corners and examining the basilisk skin.

The next person to arrive was Professor Flitwick who, as soon as he found himself airborne, drew his wand and controlled his landing. Flitwick got them organised properly, so that they started to clear away the block in the tunnel and made himself busy constructing supports to prevent any further collapse.

Colin Creevey, when he arrived, was completely useless as a helper because he seemed to be trying to take detailed photographs of the entire place. Harry thought the Slytherins would be mad at him for not pulling his weight but he overheard the Slytherin girl quietly asking if they could have a full set of the photographs to put up in the Slytherin common room.

They were still working at that when Professor McGonagall emerged from the pipe very slowly, she must have been using a spell to slow her down. Harry thought privately that it was probably a good thing, considering her age. He wondered why Snape hadn’t done something similar.

There was a clattering noise as a basket appeared on a rope. The basket stayed level, and it didn’t look like it could be tipped over either. It hovered in place, the rope slightly slack.

 

After Flitwick had approved the safety of the gap they had made, they made their way one by one, through the larger opening in the wall.

Further down the corridor they found the second passworded door; the round door. He saw Colin admiring the machinery of it. While he was distracted, Professor Snape lifted the camera off the boy’s shoulder and used it to take a group picture of the Slytherin students in front of the door.

After everyone had had a good look at the door and it’s ornate carvings, Harry managed to get it to open first time. There was a combined, stunned gasp from the others as they watched it open. There was a scramble from the students closest to get through the door.

It was Hermione who made it to the doorway first but she stopped there, completely still. Zabini walked straight into her and fell backwards but she still didn’t budge.

“Granger, what’re you doing?” He groaned.

“I can’t go through,” she said.

“Don’t be so dramatic, Miss Granger, it’s only a doorway.”

Harry could feel the coldness emanating from Hermione, he wasn’t disappointed by her reply either.

“I would be delighted to get out of your way, Professor Snape. Unfortunately it is physically impossible for me to lift my feet.”

Professor Flitwick cast a couple of detection charms.

“It’s the floor,” he said. “There is a sticking charm on the floor, which has been triggered by something.

One of the Hufflepuffs tried to edge his way around Hermione and surprisingly, made it. This just made the girl more irate. She drew her wand and started to cast all of the spells that could possibly release her- Professor Flitwick and McGonagall looked quite impressed but started to look a little concerned when nothing made any difference.

“Why am I stuck?” Hermione asked, distraught. “I didn’t do anything! Harry, did anything happen to you last time you did this?”

“Nope,” Harry said. He wasn’t feeling particularly sympathetic, Hermione and Ron had hardly spoken to him over the past few days. He wasn’t particularly concerned yet. If it came to the worst possible scenario, they’d have to abandon Hermione’s shoes.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Malfoy’s drawl came from the back of the crowd.

“Evidently it is not to the rest of us. Do you intend to help or merely make useless comments?”

Harry loved Professor McGonagall.

“It’s because she’s a mud-“ he was cut short by a glare from Snape, “Because she’s a muggleborn. This is Salazar Slytherin’s chamber, he wouldn’t just let anyone in.”

Hermione looked hugely disappointed and Colin and a Hufflepuff drooped as well.

“Can I try something?” Harry asked.

“I’d rather you didn’t.” Snape muttered, but made no actual move to stop him.

“I’m just going to see if I can undo the charm, Sir.”

Harry tried to see a snake, but the ones on the doors had melted into the walls.

“Um, could somebody conjure me a snake?”

Everyone looked at him as if he was insane.

“Please, I only need a tiny one.”

Surprisingly, it was Draco Malfoy who stepped forwards and conjured a tiny little corn snake, just a little longer than his hand.

“Thanks, Malfoy!”

Now, with the snake to keep his attention, Harry pointed his wand at the ground near his friend’s feet.

“Finite Incantatem.” He tried.

Hermione lifted her feet cautiously and stepped through to the other side of the door.

Everyone was still staring at him. Draco was still standing fairly close so Harry gave him the corn snake back, but the boy didn’t stop gaping.

“I am keeping Potter for a month.” Flitwick announced.

McGonagall laughed, “Maybe not a whole month, Filius. This newfound talent might help to bring his marks up in practical charms though, that is certainly a unique skill.”

This time they made it through the doorway with no hassle, apart from Colin Creevey apparently attempting to make the long jump record to avoid getting stuck. Harry didn’t bother pointing out that it would have been easy to free him.

The chamber they were in now was the big one. Harry could see that the chamber had flooded a little more, by considering how much of the statue was now hidden by the water.

They all went down the walkway until they reached the huge body of the basilisk. Harry was amazed by how bad the smell was and copied Hermione’s idea of using the bubblehead charm, along with most of the others. The professors all picked a different spell which seemed to leave their heads free.

“Harry?” He heard a shaky voice ask, turning he saw Hermione looking down at the ground close by. “That isn’t all your blood, is it?”

On the stone floor of the chamber, there was a dark red stain covering an area about half the size of a person. A patch of sticky, dried blood. When Harry knelt down to look at it closely, he could make out two different colours and there was an even larger stain of ink next to it.

“Probably about half of it,” he estimated, missing the look shared between McGonagall and Flitwick. “It’s okay though, I was only hurt for a couple of minutes before Fawkes healed me up.”

“Bloody bird didn’t replace any of that blood though, did it?” Snape muttered, Harry thought he was having a bad effect on the man.

“That thing is bloody massive!” That was a seventh year Slytherin. He was waving his arms to try to get them to take in the form of the basilisk. “Like seriously, is nobody else seeing this?”

The boy looked around at the rest of them wildly, “I mean sure, that’s quite a lot of blood, I understand. But what I’m saying is, in a fight between this and the Knight Bus, the bus would crumple. Look at the size of those fangs!”

Everybody did, out of convention.

“One of those went through Potter! That kid is scrawny now, do you remember what he was like four years ago? Are we sure he killed it?”

“The boy has a point,” McGonagall said to Snape. “I remember having Potter and the Weasley’s in my office after the event. Now I have seen the monster, I am amazed they were not crushed.”

“You have said it before, Minerva. ‘Sheer, dumb luck’.”

Harry frowned, “Why do all Slytherins think I’m scrawny?”

“Well you are a little thin, Harry.” Hermione said. 

Snape clapped his hands loudly and stepped forward.

“Right, now we are here, let us get down to work. You will all have plenty of time to look at the creature. Mr Creevey, you may take photographs as you will but do not go more than 10 metres away from a Professor, or your camera will be confiscated. Hufflepuffs, Professor McGonagall will be escorting you along the passage with what we harvest.”

They all nodded, Colin looked worried but said ‘Yes, Sir’ along with the others.

“Good, the rest of you will be helping me. Potter, you and your newfound skill had better be prepared to help Professor Flitwick with any charms he needs casting. If any one of you needs medical assistance in any form, do not hesitate to look for help. It would be unfortunate to have to explain to the headmaster why we had to return some of you in a bucket.”

As Snape began to explain to Hermione and the Slytherins how to begin removing the basilisk’s scales, Harry followed Flitwick who was casting spells to examine the wards on the room. Occasionally the professor would have Harry repeat a charm in parseltongue, and Harry had to retrieve the tiny corn snake from Draco in order to keep up with the pronunciation challenges. Colin decided to tag along with them since they were wandering around the huge chamber rather than staying in one place.

What Harry hadn’t noticed last time was that the huge statue of Slytherin, while enormous, was not confined to only the head and shoulders. When Professor Flitwick sent a beam of light from his wand deep into the depths of the flooded water next to the statue, they could see, just, the front of a robe which descended far down past the end where the light ended.

“This thing’s huge!” Colin exclaimed.

Flitwick looked dazed, “How much effort would this have taken to build? Do you think he did this by himself? He must have had help! It would have taken months otherwise.”

“He did build like a quarter of Hogwarts.” Harry said, “So he can’t have been too bad at building stuff.”

There was a loud rushing noise behind them and the three of them turned in time to see a burst of fire leap out from the side of the corpse to collide with Blaise Zabini. The next second Harry and the Charms professor were sprinting back towards the others.

Professor Snape was on full alert and was close enough to be able to catch the Slytherin as he fell. Draco Malfoy of all people was the one to smother the fire at its source, conjuring a thick blanket out of nothing. Flitwick had the first aid kit open within seconds and was pulling potions and bandages out. Seeing that the boy was going to be fine, Snape ordered the rest of the students to get back to work.

Harry was about to ask Snape if there was anything he could do to help when they were both distracted by a strange noise from the other end of the chamber. They both looked up just in time to see Colin Creevey drop his camera on the stone floor. A moment later, he slid over the edge into the deep water and disappeared from sight.

Harry was there almost instantly with his wand out. The first spell he cast was a lumos charm and as they both peered into the dark, even Snape gasped.

About ten metres down, and diving fast, was the largest Kelpie Harry had ever seen. The giant, horselike creature was a beautiful, scaly blue. Its mane was made of bulrushes and from what they could see, Colin was tangled up in them, fighting to get away. The boy had his wand out but obviously wasn’t managing to cast any spells. Colin was one of those who had opted to not use a bubblehead charm and now he was struggling from the lack of oxygen.

Harry barely thought before diving in.

The water was freezing. Harry had forgotten quite how difficult it was to swim outside of the prefects’ bathroom. It was definitely more demanding without the fins that Gillyweed gave you and the air in his bubble tasted stale and heavy with moisture too.

As he got closer to the animal, he realised that he hadn’t actually thought of a plan. He knew that putting some sort of bridle on the Kelpie would calm it down, but he didn’t have anything to fix on. Instead, he went straight for where Colin was struggling with the rushes. Harry began to cast cutting hexes as fast as he could, he pulled Colin close to him so that the boy was able to take deep breaths from Harry’s air bubble. Unfortunately, to cast the cutting spells, he had to cancel the lumos and they were plunged into darkness.

Harry was able to clear away the rushes, but new ones kept appearing. It felt like Devil’s Snare and in the pitch black, it was terrifying. He was scared that Colin was going to move and get cut by accident.

He was still fighting hard when the Kelpie stopped sinking, and started to rise up again. Its great head leading the way back up. Peering through the murky water, Harry could just make out a light above them.

He made a last-ditch effort to clear the two of them and when they were about 5 metres away, used ascendio; the same spell he had used in the second task to propel them out of the water.

They flew out and crashed down into the ground. Colin started throwing up water, and his coughing sounded awful. Harry just rolled over onto his back, looking up at the ceiling and breathing hard. He heard people shouting spells, but couldn’t find the energy to pay attention. After a few minutes, it quieted down and Harry became aware of Professor McGonagall trying to help Colin breathe.

Snape appeared, kneeling down next to Harry. The man was panting as well.

“Everything okay, Sir?” Harry asked weakly.

Snape sent him a withering look, but the effect was ruined slightly because the professor was swaying with exhaustion.

“One day,” he said. “You will stop to plan, or at least think, before running off. And everyone will be better off for it.”

“Has it gone?”

Snape looked over his shoulder, although there was no way he would be sitting here if anyone was not safe.

“Quite gone Potter. And it has not taken anyone with it this time either.”

Harry pushed himself up so he could look around. His eyes lit on Colin first, the boy seemed to be breathing properly, and was able to talk to McGonagall. Although he did keep having to stop so that he could cough.

Zabini was standing with Malfoy and Nott next to the basilisk and he seemed to be good as new. Flitwick was rushing around with Hermione by his side, casting charms over the water, probably to stop the Kelpie from resurfacing.

“Are we going to leave, sir?” Harry was slightly disappointed, it would be annoying to have to leave now. Even now he was getting his strength back. Although he was still soaked and freezing cold.

Snape looked like he was going to agree, but was interrupted by McGonagall.

“Certainly not, Potter. Where is your sense of adventure? I shall escort Mr Creevey back up to Madame Pomfrey, and we shall finish up here as quickly as possible.”

“Minerva?” Snape looked shocked, “Surely after this, it would be prudent for us to leave? There is no point in senselessly staying here when there is too much danger.”

“Severus, we are almost done. To stop now would mean that we would have to abandon these ingredients or arrange a second expedition. As Professor Flitwick has just erected such strong temporary wards, now really is the safest time to do this.” McGonagall cast a drying charm on Harry which warmed him up again and he felt mostly rejuvenated. “And you have yet to check for the specialised enchantments. You know that will be a weight on all of our minds until you have had a look.”

Snape nodded reluctantly, “We will be no longer than an hour then, and much less should Potter begin to look any worse.”

Professor McGonagall looked relieved and hurried to take away Colin and the Hufflepuffs with their next load of ingredients. Snape conjured a seat and forced Harry to take it, and then gave the Slytherins final instructions about what to focus on removing from the basilisk.

Snape was finally free to cast his own spells. He spent a lot of time muttering to himself and tapping his wand against the walls, floor and statues. Harry was amused to see that he had Colin’s camera slung over his shoulder.

Once, as he passed, Harry plucked up the courage to ask a question.

“Where do you think the Kelpie came from, Sir?”

Snape looked at him, irritated. “What do you mean, Potter? It’s a Kelpie, a water spirit. You should have covered them in your third year with Lupin.”

“Yes, sir. And one of the things Remus told us was that Kelpies can only live for about two hundred years.”

“And? You are babbling and I am in a hurry.”

“That means that the kelpie has to have got in here recently, doesn’t it? It’s huge, but even if it is three hundred, it hasn’t been here since Slytherin was. So there is probably a connection somewhere with the lake. That would explain how this place got flooded. Could there be a breach in the wards there?”

The professor considered for a moment. “Magical wards historically did not always extend over physical barriers, like walls. If Slytherin thought a wall would hold, then he would not have expended the energy in reinforcing it magically. That is possible.”

“And it would be fortunate for us as well,” Snape continued. “Because the lake lies entirely within Hogwarts grounds, so long as the wards around the school are intact, this cannot be a weak point.”

Flitwick came up to them, “Indeed Mr Potter, in fact, a breach down here might be best for us. We would not need to rely on the integrity of ancient spells. As far as I can see, the anti-apparition wards are functioning here and they are a more modern invention. In fact there may well be a double protection as some very antiquated spells are functioning too. ”

Snape agreed, “I have attempted a few detection spells as well, I do not believe the Dark Lord would risk trying to enter Hogwarts through here. And that was one of our main objectives today.”

Collecting everything up did not take long after that. When they had all packed everything into their bags and transfigured wheelbarrows, Snape herded all of the students out into the passage and Professor Flitwick set the remains on fire. McGonagall was back with the Hufflepuffs for this return journey, she looked tired out and gave Harry a grateful look when he offered to carry her bag in his wheelbarrow.

After the professors had made sure that the fire was put out- Snape remarked that it would be right at the end that they managed to burn the whole school down- they all set off back down the tunnel.

It was hard going and they didn’t envy the Hufflepuffs for making the journey so many times. Harry had to stop at the doors to the chamber to shut them properly. The teachers were on edge with so many of them moving volatile materials but they did eventually make it back safely.

McGonagall made Harry go up the pipe first. She told him that Madame Pomfrey was waiting for him at the top and that she would probably make him go to the hospital wing. Harry groaned.

“Merlin, Potter” Harry looked around, it was Draco that had spoken. “Do you actually have a death wish? You were almost drowned by a kelpie, why would you not want a healer?”

“I’m fine, Malfoy!” Harry said annoyed, “I had the bubblehead charm on the whole time, I only got a bit wet. I suppose you think I ought to have let my friend drown.”

Draco scoffed, “Potter, everyone knows you have a saving people thing. And you wouldn’t have made it back up here if Professor Snape hadn’t saved your skin. Do you ever actually fight anything smaller than a dragon?”

“Amen to that.” Hermione said under her breath. Only three people heard her though. Malfoy looked shocked, Harry was offended and Snape smug.

Harry wanted to retort, but was met by stern looks from the teachers. McGonagall told him to stand on the box and hold onto the rope and said it would be levitated up by the students in the bathroom above.

 

After the wandlit cavern downstairs, Harry was almost blinded by the light in the bathroom. The first thing that struck him was the delighted look on Professor Slughorn’s face, the man looked like it was Christmas again. The second thing was Madam Pomfrey grabbing him by the arm to pull him out of the pipe.

There wasn’t much that he could do as she bundled him into a waiting wheelchair and set off to the hospital wing. Pomfrey left strict instructions with Slughorn to send Zabini along as soon as he surfaced.

Harry tried to tell her that he was feeling fine but now that he was lying down, he found that all he really wanted to do was fall asleep.

He did manage to stay awake just long enough to see that Colin Creevey was fast asleep in his own bed.

“Are you happy now, you stubborn child?” Pomfrey asked him.

Harry nodded lazily, “He is alright, isn’t he?”

“Nothing wrong that a couple of days’ rest and some potions won’t fix up.”

“Good, I think he breathed in quite a lot of water.”

Pomfrey moved Harry off his chair and onto the bed he usually used in the hospital wing. He really hated this bed, altogether he had probably spent almost a whole term in it by now. Exhausted by the morning, he fell asleep.

A few hours later, Harry was woken up by the smell of food. Somebody had left a deep bowl of piping hot vegetable soup on a tray next to his bed. He was sitting up almost instantly and dug in. It seemed Madam Pomfrey wasn’t as cross with him as she had been before.

Sitting on the bed opposite was Blaize Zabini. The boy was making his way through a plate of sandwiches and looked as fed up as ever. Another Slytherin, Nott, was sitting in a chair next to him. Zabini’s little brother was there too, sitting cross legged at the end of the bed. The smaller boy seemed to be chatting with Nott and kept stealing sandwiches.

Blaise caught his eye.

“Welcome back to the world of the living, Potter.”

It wasn’t said unkindly and Harry nodded back, “It was only a nap. I’ve had worse.”

“You made Slughorn happy today. If you aren’t careful he might have you back in the Slug Club.”

“Ugh, I hope not. It took long enough to get myself thrown out!”

The brother, Etienne, Harry thought his name was, looked more enthusiastic than Harry had ever seen him.

“How was the quiddich match then?” Harry asked. Apparently this was the right question as the boy started explaining every detail of the match.

“We had two games and in the first one we got to try everything. Madam Hooch just split us up randomly so I was playing with Ravenclaws and Gryffindors and everything. I spent loads of time as a chaser and I scored six times, even though the other team had two keepers. It took ages to find the snitch, because everyone kept switching around and forgetting what they were supposed to be doing.  So the score got up to 340 to 230, which was totally unfair because we were winning.”

“That’s great, well done! Did everyone have fun? Goodwin didn’t hurt herself, did she?”

Zabini laughed, “Most folk liked it. Everyone who didn’t want to play twice sat in the stands and watched the rest of us play more of a real match. There was about ten of us on each team though, so it was a bit crowded. Goodwin was alright, she only fell off her broom a couple of times. I was a beater that time and I managed to hit Riley in the head!”

Harry frowned, “I thought they weren’t going to have any beaters?”

“They didn’t let us use bludgers or anything. That Weasley girl told Hooch we should use these rubber ball things. They were a bit of a pain since they don’t fly, but if you throw them hard enough you can make someone drop the quaffle.”

Ginny was a genius, Harry thought to himself. That was a great way to make the game safer, a bit more like dodgeball, so it was safe enough for a pitch full of kids. Though maybe that was a bit unfair- he had been okay when he was eleven.

“So what was your secret mission?” The second year asked, “Are you allowed to tell us yet?”

The sixth years shared a look and shrugged at each other.

“It wasn’t much, Etienne.” Blaise said, “We went down to the Chamber of Secrets, I set myself on fire and Potter saved some muggleborn kid from drowning.”

Etienne- Harry was proud that he had the name right- looked completely gobsmacked. He kept looking between his brother, Harry and Colin. Nott was howling with laughter at the two brothers.

Harry felt particularly odd. Before today, he had never seen Nott excited and he had been like a little kid all day.  He had never seen either of the Zabini’s show so much emotion before either. He had been almost convinced they didn’t feel anything much. Maybe they knew some Occlumency, Snape was a bit like that sometimes.

Slytherins were odd once you got to know them a bit.

Blaise nodded to him, “Potter, I saw you run over when I got burnt. Thanks for that.”

Harry shrugged, “It’s alright- like Malfoy said, I’ve got a thing about saving people. Besides, I didn’t have a clue what to do. I’m better when people are drowning.”

Nott grinned, “We used to laugh about that in fourth year. Dumbledore said you had ‘moral fibre’. We thought it made you sound like a breakfast cereal for old hags.”

Etienne had stolen another sandwich and jumped down onto the floor. He was scrutinising Colin from a distance. He glanced back at Harry.

“Isn’t he that Gryffindor who’s always taking photographs of everyone?”

Harry nodded. “He was taking photos of the chamber. Then this huge kelpie appeared and got hold of him somehow. He was probably trying to get it on film. I wonder if he did, Snape was looking after the camera the last time I saw.”

“Professor Snape had a camera before, when he was down in the Entrance Hall.” Etienne said. “He said he was going to brew that potion which makes the people in them move.”

“I hope they came out okay.” Nott said, “It’d be annoying if they didn’t.”

“They’ll be fine.” An annoyed voice said from the other end of the room. “I wouldn’t drop my camera, and even if I did, it’s full of protective spells! There’s so many waterproof, fireproof, shockproof and spellproof spells on it, I’ll be surprised if it ever breaks.”

“Colin!” Harry called, “How are you feeling?”

The Gryffindor went a little red. “I’m fine. Thanks Harry. I was taking photos of the statue and then the Kelpie appeared and I just felt like I had to climb onto it, you know?”

Harry nodded, “They’re like that. If you got a good picture of it, can I use it in my classes this week?” He shot a look at Etienne, “And don’t you tell anyone about that, it’ll put you ahead on the competition for prizes if you don’t.”

“What prizes?” Nott asked. Harry ignored him, that plan wasn’t concrete yet.

“Did you say Snape has my camera?” Colin asked, looking like he was about to march off to get it straight away.

Nott answered first, “Yep. He dragged Blaise along to see Madam Pomfrey as soon as we got up here. He hung around for a bit, got us all some food, then vanished off. Etienne appeared after that, so we figured he went back to the dungeons to brew the potion.”

Colin settled back into his pillows. Out of everyone, Snape was probably the only person he would trust to make a developing solution for his photographs.

Harry looked down at his empty soup bowl. So Snape had got him his food, how strange. Maybe the man was just making sure Harry wasn’t going to collapse later on.

 

Harry wondered how hard it was going to be to escape the hospital wing. Sometimes the matron insisted he stay for days longer than he needed and at other times, he was only there for minutes. He hoped he was allowed out sooner rather than later. He had lessons to plan and homework to do. He couldn’t afford to miss the whole weekend.

Almost as if she had heard these thoughts, Madame Pomfrey appeared out of her office. She stopped at Colin’s bed first, passing him a fizzing, yellow potion and making sure he drank it all. The boy fell asleep before he could give her the bottle back and she summoned it before it was able to shatter on the floor.

She made her way up the room to Zabini. She had a quick look at his side, declaring him fit and telling him he was free to go. He packed up his things, gave his brother an armful of food from his plate and then the three Slytherins left.

The matron tidied away the mess they had left before finally coming over to Harry. He tried to look as well as possible.

“How are you feeling?”

Harry gave her a small, hopeful smile, “I feel great!”

She merely raised an eyebrow.

“Well, I’m a bit tired, but I really do feel okay.”

Pomfrey looked a little disbelieving but relented. “If you are certain. Professor Snape told me that he and Professor McGonagall would like a word with you before dinner. I suggested you head to the staff room for five o’clock.”

Harry glanced up at the clock. It was quarter to three then at least there was a couple of hours to get some work done.

 

Harry entered the staff room at five to five and was surprised by how many teachers were in there on their day off. He made his way over to where McGonagall and Snape were sitting with a few other teachers. They were all relaxing back and listening to Madam Hooch’s enthusiastic retelling of the quiddich matches.

McGonagall was the first to notice him and she nudged Snape to get his attention. Harry became nervous when they both became suddenly more serious looking. He had assumed they just wanted some sort of debrief after the expedition.

Madame Hooch was the first to speak to him, stopping in the middle of her story.

“Ah, Potter! It is good to see you. Minerva said you managed to land yourself in the hospital wing again. Usually it’s quiddich that sends you there.”

Harry smiled at her, “Yes, I just got a bit worn out after collecting those ingredients. Madam Pomfrey made me stay there for a while.”

McGonagall snorted, “What he means by that Rolanda, is that he attempted to singlehandedly save a fifth year from the largest Kelpie I have ever seen.”

“Did he really?” Sprout asked. “I overheard Miss Granger telling Hagrid about Kelpies earlier but I imagined she was referencing some book. The story seemed too incredible. Which fifth year was it? Not one of mine, I hope?”

“Colin Creevey,” McGonagall answered, “That boy has the worst luck.”

Sprout gave her a kindly smile, “Maybe the boy was just curious. A couple of my badgers are like that. They find themselves in all sorts of trouble.”

Harry and McGonagall shared a look, they were dead certain Hufflepuffs made a particular effort to get into less trouble than Gryffindors did.

Snape stood up and beckoned to Harry, leading him across to the nearest of the tables at the side of the room.

 

“Mr Potter, I may not have any cauldrons left for you to clean, but we do have this.”

The man dragged over the staffroom teapot and emptied it with a flick of his wand.

Harry’s face fell, he should have guessed that this was going to happen.

“It was an incredibly stupid thing for you to do to jump into that tunnel without warning us first. I think you should take some time to think about why that was not the correct course of action. Additionally, diving into that water after Creevey, although brave, was undoubtedly idiotic.” He looked stern.

“You mentioned before the deplorable state of this teapot, and I agree that it is time to do something about it. Do not use any magic.”

Snape conjured up a bucket of hot water and a scouring brush.

Harry rolled his eyes and got to work. He should have known that Snape wouldn’t let him get away with anything.

“Detention again, Potter?” Harry glanced to the side to see Madam Hooch perch on the back of one of the sofas.

“I always seem to have one or two lined up.” Harry grinned, “I was talking to a second year earlier, they really seemed to enjoy the match!”

“Yes, a couple of them were fairly raving about it.”

“It was Zabini actually, he actually looked like a kid for once.”

“Yes, that boy has a mean arm. He would make a good beater or chaser but he gets a little bored with the quaffle. It was his friend Granville who caught the snitch in that second game though. That lad would make a good reserve seeker now that Malfoy is off the team. He even impressed Miss Weasley.”

Hooch took him through some of the finer points of the match which had gone over Zabini’s head. She seemed to be really enthusiastic about the whole thing and it sounded like she was planning to start a club for anybody who was interested in quiddich but didn’t make it into their house team.

Harry thought it was a great idea. He knew he was really lucky to have joined the team in first year. Most people didn’t manage it and they didn’t get much of a chance to play.

Cleaning the pot was surprisingly fast and Snape grudgingly let him go after another lecture where he had McGonagall as backup.

 

Dinner was a fairly comfortable affair. The house tables were buzzing with chatter and about half of the students looked excited about the day they had had. Even Dumbledore looked less fierce and he seemed to be having a fairly civil conversation with Professor Sprout and McGonagall.

Mrs Norris hissed at him again though – he supposed he couldn’t get on with everyone.

After dinner, Harry followed Snape up to a room near the library where there was a group of Slytherin and Ravenclaw first and second years studying.

 

Snape addressed them all. “Mr Potter will be supervising your study on Saturday evenings, behave while he is here. Potter has his own coursework to be getting on with. Your usual rules apply – if you get stuck then you may ask the person next to you for help, if neither of you can manage then you may ask for help. Do not abuse this, any chatting will earn you a detention.” Snape left the room.

Harry sank into the seat on the dais and unpacked his things. This study class seemed a lot more relaxed than the Gryffindor ones he had had up to his OWLs. Those had to be held in silence, and there was a low level voices here which was more comfortable.

He was able to finish his DADA essay before the first question came. Surprisingly it was from a Slytherin student about his own homework.

“Mr Potter,” Vaisey said, “For this question, is it supposed to be my home house or my school house?”

“Your own home.” Harry said. “There’s another question that’s supposed to be for Hogwarts.

“I thought it would be,” she said. “Which one do you want it for, our town house or country house?”

Harry blinked at her for a moment, then glanced at her question prompt. “Well, your question is asking about Vampires. Where do you think you’re more likely to come across one?”

“The country house?”

“Why?”

She frowned, “I don’t know, because it’s less likely to be found out?”

Harry shook his head, “Think about it, you are more likely to notice a new person wandering about and acting suspiciously outside of a city. And there are far fewer potential victims. Back in a city, a vampire would never have to stay in the same place for more than one night. And even if they did, they aren’t as likely to be recognised. Also, in cities they can meet with the Temperance League or other vampires. You’re far more likely to find them there.”

Vaisey nodded, fairly happy with the answer. Harry was glad that she had asked and a little relieved that she didn’t seem to be embarrassed about being wrong. After that first question, the ice seemed to be broken and quite a few second years came up to ask him questions about their other subjects. The first years still seemed to be a little wary of him and they didn’t come up as much. He was a little bit relieved that they didn’t have more questions for him. Although they were interesting to answer, he did have enough to be getting on with.

 When the bell rang, Harry followed the Ravenclaw students as far as the staircase before heading up to his bedroom.

 He told the snake in the portrait that Draco Malfoy was talented at transfiguration and it let him in, grumbling a little that he could have noticed that years ago. He practically fell into his bed, without even noticing that his rooms had expanded to include a chest of drawers and a full sized bath.

“And you expect me to believe that you have not heard from your son in over a week?”

Narcissa Malfoy was cowering in front of him. He could see her shaking in fear. He was not moved.

“Why did you not bring this to me before?”

“My Lord,” she began, “Draco has left more time between his letters before. It is not unlike him-”

“But not this year.” Voldemort’s voice was cold. Unforgiving.

“No, my Lord.”

There was a moment of silence and Voldemort crossed his legs, leaning back securely in his ornate chair.

“Perhaps all Draco needs a little more… encouragement.” Narcissa’s eyes widened in fear. “He may need a reminder that his mission must be carried through by the end of the year.”

“I… I will send him an owl immediately, my lord.”

“No, not you. Bella?” Voldemort beckoned the woman over from the side of the room where she had been standing with some other Death Eaters. “You will send the letter. He will recognise it is from you?”

“Yes, Master.” Bellatrix hurried forwards to kiss the hem of his robes.

“Good, Draco might understand a little more of the urgency of the situation. If we hear nothing by Tuesday, I will summon Severus for a little chat.” Voldemort pulled out his wand and twirled it in his long fingers for a moment. The two witches watched it warily.

“Of course - we must give Bella something to write about.” The wand was pointed steadily at Narcissa Malfoy who barely had time to brace herself.

“Crucio.”

Narcissa sank almost gracefully to her knees, then to the floor. Only then did she scream out her agony.

Her sister watched her, unflinching while Voldemort merely looked detached, feeling none of the anger or glee he usually experienced when using the curse. 

Voldemort lifted the curse, then frowned. Something wasn’t quite right. After a second, the corner of his mouth twitched slightly. He focussed for a second and everything went fuzzy. Then there was pain, pain building up in the centre of his forehead.

 

Harry woke up in bed, breathing fast. He made his way to the bathroom quickly to splash cold water on his face to wake himself up. He wondered what he should do now.

Usually his first thoughts would be either to go to Dumbledore or else just forget the dream. But Harry wasn’t sure how Dumbledore would respond. The old man had warned him so many times this year to not get involved with Draco and whatever the boy was up to, that he would probably not listen to this either.

At the same time, Harry felt that the dream was too important to dismiss. It was probably a real vision. Harry was wary of them since- well since Sirius last year. He didn’t have many visions this year though. And when he did, Voldemort usually noticed and threw him out of his mind before anything interesting happened. Harry was more than grateful for that, he never had visions of Voldemort doing anything which was not destructive.

So now Harry had a dilemma about what he should do. He had a strong feeling that Dumbledore would just take no notice of it, but him and Snape at least seemed to be taking more of an interest in whatever Malfoy was up to.

Snape. That was a thought. The man had been almost…tolerant of Harry these last couple of days. And the man definitely cared about Malfoy more than he seemed to care about anyone else. He would probably know what to do about the threat to Malfoy’s mum too. And at least if Snape was mad at him, not much would change.

 

Harry glanced at his watch, it was 4 o’clock. That was annoying, everyone else in the castle was probably asleep. He reached for yesterday’s jeans which were still lying in a heap on the floor. He pulled the marauder’s map out of the pocket, activating it as he did so.

Looking over the map, he could see that almost everyone was in bed. A few seventh years were in the wrong beds, but Harry skipped over that, giving them a bit of privacy.

To his surprise, the little dot labelled Severus Snape didn’t seem to be staying still. The man seemed to be slowly moving around a little unlabelled room near the rest of the teacher’s quarters. Harry assumed it was where the man lived when he was not teaching, because he had seen him there before when checking the map to sneak out at night.

He dressed quietly, yawning. When he was in some fairly smart clothes, he opened the portrait door.

“Uh, hello?”

The snake was asleep in the tree in the background. Harry knocked on the frame to wake it up.

“Hey!”

It stirred eventually, sleepily slithering into the foreground, getting more detail the closer it got.

“What is it, young sir?”

“I was wondering how early I’m allowed out of here? We used to have quiddich practice at half four, so I can’t have too long to wait.”

The snake yawned, showing off its fangs. “I suppose if you were jolly eager, you might be able to leave at half past four.”

“Good,” Harry said. He showed it his watch, “So you don’t mind if I leave in a few minutes then?”

His portrait guardian turned around without looking and started sleepily back towards the tree. “Go when you like, just do not make too much noise. And do try to not slam me shut. You almost shook me out of my tree once.”

Harry grinned, slipping out into the corridor and closing the door as gently as possible.

 

According to the map, Snape’s rooms were on the fourth floor. Harry made use of a passageway through a fake wall so that he didn’t have to take the grand staircase. This way he didn’t risk being called out by hundreds of talking portraits (they never appreciated being woken up early).

It wasn’t until Harry was sneaking up towards the teacher’s rooms that he really thought about what he was doing. Any professor he woke up now was sure to be furious with him. Voldemort really did pick his moments.

Harry was glad McGonagall in particular slept in a different part of the castle – she was a notoriously light sleeper as he had discovered more than once at the cost of a few hours detention.

He checked the map quickly. As he had expected, there was still nobody patrolling the school. The teachers on duty tended to go to bed just after midnight, and then the school was quiet until seven the next morning.

Snape was still in the same room, the entrance to his suite was still a couple of doors down and Harry checked which one it was exactly, he didn’t want to get the wrong one.

He deactivated the map and stuffed it back into his pocket, proceeding slowly along the corridor. He had discovered ages ago that if you were careful, only one of the candles in the sconces would light at a time. That meant that you didn’t get the sudden rush of light when a whole corridor suddenly brightened.

 

Harry almost had a heart attack when a hand grabbed him by his shirt collar.

“Shi-“

“Language, Potter.”

He was pulled sideways through one of the walls lining the corridor. It became solid again in front of him before he was released. Harry spun around to see a thoroughly disgruntled Snape.

Harry was confused. Snape seemed to have come straight through an invisible wall which didn’t exist on the map. He knew certain parts of Hogwarts weren’t marked, but those were very few and he hardly ever came across them.

The room he found himself in was a small sitting room. It looked fairly cosy, with a large fireplace and bookcases lining the walls. There was a large, cushy armchair as well as a low couch. From what Harry could work out, it looked like Snape had been marking essays from the armchair.

 “So?”

Harry turned to Snape. The man had his arms crossed, and looked angry. The first thought that came into his head was that Snape even managed to find a black dressing gown and slippers.

He managed to not say that.

“I needed to talk to you, Sir.”

“How did you get here, Potter? Do you have any idea what time it is?”

“It’s about half past four isn’t it, Professor? And I, uh, just knew where to find you?”

“That was a rhetorical question, I was asking why you are not currently asleep in your bed as you are supposed to be. And why you were sneaking around the staff quarters at this hour. It also begs the question of how you knew to even find me here, as Heads of House have their quarters near their respective common rooms- as you are well aware.”

Snape glared at Harry for a long moment, daring the boy to answer any of those questions to his satisfaction.

“I had a vision!” Harry blurted.

Snape merely raised an eyebrow. Harry was starting to feel quite foolish. Maybe it had been a bad decision to come to Snape after all.

“And, um, I know I’m not supposed to be having them, but I did. So I thought I’d better tell someone. And, well, you’re someone. Of course you’re someone what I mean is, you know everything – well, not everything obviously, but-“

“Potter, stop!” Snape sighed deeply, “You are rambling. Is somebody in imminent danger?”

“Well, no Sir.”

“Is anybody injured? Did you see anybody die?”

“Just Mrs Malfoy.”

Snape looked alarmed, “Narcissa is dead?”

“What? No! Voldemort Crucio’d her, but she’s fine.”

Professor Snape rubbed his face with both hands for a few moments, as if he was gathering some strength. He leaned against the arm of the couch, so that Harry was standing directly in front of him. Snape was still more than a head taller.

“You and I have very different definitions of ‘fine’.”

Harry gave a weak smile, “Well, she’s better than dead anyway.”

“Tell me about it then. Concisely, if you would.”

Harry retold the story. Including everything he could remember of what he saw and heard as well as enough of Voldemort’s emotions to make Snape look slightly uneasy. He finished off by telling Snape about how Voldemort had noticed Harry’s presence.

When he had finished listening, Snape nodded his head.

“And you believe this to be a truthful vision? It could not be a mere dream because of your dislike for Mr Malfoy?”

“No! I can tell the difference.”

Snape eyed him closely. Suddenly Harry knew that he was thinking of the dreams Voldemort had planted about the chamber of mysteries.

“This isn’t the same as that!”

“I don’t believe I referred to anything, Mr Potter.”

“Don’t be like that! You know what you were suggesting.”

“Do not shout at me Potter. Or this conversation is over.” Snape hissed sternly.

Harry deflated, embarrassed. “Sorry, Professor. But I mean it, you can look for yourself if you want.”

Snape tilted his head to the side, considering. “And what exactly do you mean by that?”

“Anything, a pensieve if you want. Or you could just use Occlumency.”

“Legillimency,” Snape corrected automatically. “And I returned the pensieve to Professor Dumbledore after our lessons ended.”

“Well, then go ahead.” Harry challenged. “It’s not like you haven’t done it before. It didn’t seem to bother you when you were looking for that book.”

The black eyes narrowed. “Do not remind me of that book. I cannot believe even you were foolish enough to use it.”

“Yeah, I know, are you going to check it or not?”

“Not.”

Harry was astounded. “What do you mean, ‘not’? You said it might be another plot from Voldemort!”

“Actually, you will recall I merely asked you how you knew it was a real vision. Anyway, this is not an urgent matter. We have a few days to decide what might need to be done. You will see Professor Dumbledore tomorrow, and he can trawl through your shambolic mind if he wishes.”

Harry’s heart sank. “I have to tell Dumbledore?”

Snape rolled his eyes, “Of course. Or did you imagine I was the one in charge of the Order of the Phoenix? Frankly I am amazed you came to me in the first place. Unless this whole ordeal is an elaborate lie to disguise why you were sneaking around this early in the morning. I would have expected you to go straight to Professor McGonagall, if you are still too afraid to speak to the headmaster.”

“I’m not afraid to talk to him!”

“Of course you aren’t.” Snape smirked. “Either way, it is far too early for you to be wandering the corridors. You may sleep in here until morning. We will see the headmaster at 8 o’clock.”

Harry just stared at his teacher. The conversation had taken a totally unexpected turn. Harry had expected to tell his Professor everything before springing into action, but the man didn’t seem too bothered by the whole thing. Now, he was speaking with a portrait of a very disgruntled Phineas Nigellus Black.

“Inform Professor Dumbledore that we will be present in his office after breakfast. Let him know that I have Potter here with me.”

“You should put the boy in detention until morning, Severus. He deserves it. The audacity of disturbing a professor at this hour!”

“Thank you, Phineas.” He gave Harry a meaningful look. “I will take that under advisement.”

The Slytherin headmaster slipped out of his frame, presumably to wait for Dumbledore to wake up.

“Don’t look so alarmed, Mr Potter.” Snape said to him. “I am not going to chop you into potions ingredients quite yet.”

Snape drew his wand from somewhere in his dressing gown and used it to summon a pillow and a tartan blanket, throwing them to Harry.

Harry looked at the blanket. It was mostly red and gold, not exactly what Harry would expect the head of Slytherin house to own.

“It was a present from the Depute Headmistress. She believes it is amusing to give me these for my birthday.”

“It’s pretty nice.” Harry said, admiring it

Snape just snorted, turning to leave.

“There is a bathroom on the right outside this door,” he said. “Do not go wandering. I expect you to go no further than these two rooms. Try to not make too much noise, you have kept me from my bed long enough already.”

“Yes Professor, sorry.”

Snape left, extinguishing the lights as he went. Harry, left in the dark, slipped off his shoes and jumper and lay down on the couch.

Harry wasn’t sure what he had expected to get from taking this to Snape. Somehow he felt like the man wouldn’t make him talk to Dumbledore. Not that Harry was scared… he just really didn’t want to.

The vision had been strange though, he supposed.  Usually Harry had problems trying to remember what he dreamed about but this was really clear. It didn’t even seem to be particularly significant of anything.

Apart from Draco. That was the main take-home message Harry had received. Draco was doing a job for Voldemort. In the boy’s defence, it did seem to have something to do with protecting his mother. But Draco still had a mission to complete at Hogwarts before the summer started, and that couldn’t be a good thing.

He curled up, pulling the blanket over himself. It was warm and soft and Harry vaguely wished he had one like it himself. Since there wasn’t anything Harry could do until morning- well actual morning - he might as well sleep.

 

“Wake up.”

Harry rolled over, pulling his blanket with him.

“G’way Ron”

“Would you get out of bed?”

“Sshh…” Harry was warm and comfortable and sleepy.

There was a sigh of annoyance which barely penetrated Harry’s consciousness.

“Fine Potter, you asked for it.”

Harry’s comfortable bed was suddenly very wet and very cold. The boy was on his feet in seconds.

“What?!”

Snape was standing there fully dressed, complete with a smirk.

“Ugh!”

“That’s ‘ugh, Sir’, Potter.”

Harry just scowled back, rubbing his arms to try to warm them up.

“You were much more enthusiastic a few hours ago, Mr Potter. What has happened? A short nap should have invigorated you for the day.”

He kept glaring.

Snape rolled his eyes and passed Harry a towel.

“There is some food in the kitchen if you would like to eat. Professor Dumbledore is expecting us in half an hour and we may be there for some time.” Snape turned left through the door to his rooms.

Harry stood where he was, bleary eyed for a few moments. He looked longingly at the couch, but now that it was wet he supposed it would be far less comfortable. He just hoped he’d have the opportunity to have a nap sometime soon.

“You had better not have gone back to bed!” Snape warned from wherever he was. “It won’t be water I throw at you next time.”

Using the towel, Harry dried off his hair, which seemed to be where most of the water had landed. He found his glasses and his wand on the floor next to him.

 

The ‘kitchen’ appeared to be little more than an old-fashioned stove, a sink and a plain table and chairs. Snape was already sitting there with a large mug of coffee and a copy of the Quibbler, which he was eyeing with disdain.

There was a box of Pixie Puffs and a rack of toast set out and Harry helped himself to a little of both. Snape pushed a cup of coffee across the table to Harry, who grimaced before adding about half a jug of milk and 4 spoons of sugar to it.

“That is sacrilege.”

Harry looked up, “Are you kidding? You drink this stuff strong enough to blow someone’s head off.”

“Oh, you can use words? I was beginning to think you had lost all powers of speech. And there is nothing wrong with my coffee, I should not be held to account if everyone else drinks it too weak.”

Harry ignored that and they sat without speaking for a few minutes. The only sounds the clinking of Harry’s spoon and the occasional page being turned. When the last crust had been eaten, Snape stretched and stood up.

“Come along then. It is time to see the headmaster.”

This time they left through the door to the apartment, which turned out to be through the kitchen. Harry scrutinised the wall he had been pulled through that morning, but there was nothing to suggest it was the slightest out of the ordinary. He supposed he must have just been unlucky.

 

“Why are you here this morning, gentlemen?”

Dumbledore was hard to read. He looked blank, honestly. Not angry, nor tired, nor curious. Just blank.

Harry found that he didn’t have any words. Dumbledore watched him for a minute in anticipation, before turning to Snape for enlightenment.

Snape looked exasperated. “Potter believes he had a vision last night. The information was not urgent so we waited until now to inform you.”

“And what time were you informed, Severus?”

“About three hours ago.”

Dumbledore turned back to Harry, who was fidgeting.

“Do you understand why we have a curfew in place, Mr Potter?”

“Yes Sir.” Harry coughed to clear his throat. “I thought this was more important.”

“And yet you didn’t come straight to my office?”

He looked down at the floor, avoiding the headmaster’s gaze.

“Apparently the Dark Lord mentioned me in this dream,” Snape said. “Or perhaps he came to me because I was closer?”

Dumbledore frowned, “Harry did not go through the dungeons?”

“No, he came the other way.”

They both gave him a strange look, which Harry returned. Why was it strange to look for a teacher in the part of the school where the professors all lived?

 

“So what about this dream? Severus, you believe it was not a vision?”

“It may well have been. Mr Potter did offer to let me use Legilimency to see for myself, but I believed that was more your role.”

Dumbledore considered this. Harry gulped quietly. He didn’t really want Dumbledore digging around in his mind. Sure, the old man had seen some of Harry’s memories when they had been having Occlumency lessons. But Dumbledore had been far gentler than Snape. He barely skimmed the surface and seemed to take far more care over his privacy. He was happiest with Dumbledore not seeing his childhood memories.

“Professor?” Harry said, “You could use a pensieve instead? If you do want to see it, that is.”

Dumbledore nodded swiftly, whirling off to the side of the room where the great, stone basin was kept. He pulled the doors open wide and then carefully brought the pensieve over to his desk. He beckoned to Harry.

“I need you to focus on that memory. Go through it in your head first, think of how it started and what the room looked like, and what was said. We need you to remember as clearly as possible so we can get a full picture of what happened.”

The two men watched Harry closely for a minute. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to recall everything. It was difficult as he kept getting sidetracked by his thoughts about what had happened, rather than the events themselves.

When Harry opened his eyes, Dumbledore already had his wand out. There was a long strand of silvery light stretched between the wand and Harry’s temple. Harry panicked for a moment and the strand began to shake.

“You are perfectly alright. This is how the memory extraction works. You will not forget it when it is removed, so do not worry.”

Harry nodded gently just as the strand broke free. Dumbledore pulled it lightly across, letting it pool into the memories already in the basin.

“Shall we?” Dumbledore asked, motioning them both forward.

 

Inside the pensieve, the first thing Harry noticed was that the memory was a bit dim. He smirked at his choice of words – Snape would say that Harry the one that was a bit dim. Everything was moving sort of in slow motion too, and Harry didn’t really have any recollection of what was happening.

Then the scene focussed suddenly, and Harry was able to get a slightly better look at the room they were in. He supposed he must have perceived everything the first time without really taking much notice.

Voldemort was sitting on a high seat at the head of the room, he was dressed fairly well in high quality robes and looked comfortable. There were a few death eaters at the sides of the hall, standing talking in small groups, or watching the scene of the two sisters and Voldemort unfold.

Harry watched Dumbledore as well. The headmaster seemed to be taking everything in. He was watching Voldemort closely and trying to analyse Narcissa and Bellatrix’s reactions.

Harry noticed that when Narcissa screamed, barely anyone even looked up. They seemed to have been expecting it.

Snape was standing so impassively that Harry had to look at him twice. It almost looked like Snape was one of the death eaters in the room rather than viewing it with them. Snape seemed to feel Harry’s stare though and turned to look at him briefly, reassuring Harry.

After Voldemort lifted the torture curse, he started to look different. Confused at first, then a hint of anger and finally amusement. Just as he smiled with satisfaction, the scene ended. Snape disappeared first, then Dumbledore took Harry’s arm and they both resurfaced into the office above.

“Thank you, Mr Potter. We will see you at lunch in the Great Hall. You should have enough classwork to get on with until then.”

Harry blinked at the headmaster in confusion. “Sir?”

“Thank you for providing us with this. We will review it and act or not as we see fit.”

So that was it, Harry thought. He knew Dumbledore wouldn’t listen to him. This was exactly why he had gone to Snape in the first place. He had hoped that they might include him at least a little in whatever they were going to discuss. Harry turned to leave, disappointed.

“Potter.”

“Professor Snape?”

“You will keep this to yourself? If we believe the vision to be authentic then we will take action. If it is not, then the account of it could be damaging and potentially dangerous. You understand?”

Harry bit his lip. So they didn’t want him to go and tell everyone that his suspicions about Malfoy were true. That was ridiculous! What if Malfoy caused some real harm to somebody at Hogwarts? Harry was already convinced that he was behind Katie’s attack earlier in the year. What if somebody wound up dead?

He grit his teeth together before answering as politely as possible.

“Of course, Professor.”

There was a pause where neither of the professors challenged him. He could tell that they didn’t trust him entirely. But who did they expect him to tell? Ron and Hermione still hadn’t made any attempt to speak to him. Harry had had better conversations with the Slytherins and younger students than any of his friends!

“Good.”

Harry left the room, closing the door firmly behind himself. In the past he might have been tempted to attempt to eavesdrop, but there didn’t seem much point. Neither of them seemed to trust him, so one or the other would probably check he had gone and put up some privacy spells before they mentioned anything interesting.

 

Harry stormed down the Grand Staircase, ignoring everyone around him. There were a couple of students still making their way down to a late Sunday breakfast and he pushed past them, eager to get back to his room.

“Hey!” Someone shouted.

“Perfect Potter. Thinks he has more rights to the stairs than everyone else too.”

“Huh, watch this-“

Somehow this filtered through into the front of Harry’s thoughts. But not fast enough for him to register what was happening. A blindfold appeared over his eyes, and he felt something push him from behind.

He couldn’t catch himself, and fell headfirst down the stairs, still spinning from his attempt to turn around. His shoulder collided first, and then he was rolling. Pain erupted every time he hit the cold stone. He didn’t slow at all – if anything speeding up as he approached the next landing. He must have missed the last few steps, flying straight into the wall at the end.

Everything hurt. Harry lay still, aching and blind. Footsteps approached and Harry shied away. There was a laugh, and a sharp, new pain in his side before the sounds of people moved away.

Harry cursed himself for not taking more notice of whoever it was. He didn’t even recognise their voices. He managed to reach up with one arm – the other was trapped underneath him- to pull the blindfold away from his face. His hair was already sticky with blood, and there was more oozing out of cuts on his arms.

He didn’t think he could move much more if he tried. So he didn’t. He stayed there, hoping his strength would eventually build enough for him to get up and make his way to the Hospital Wing. It wasn’t that far. Only one floor of stairs and a couple of corridors. Surely he could manage that.

 

“What on earth have you done to yourself this time, Potter?”

Harry lifted his eyes as far as he could. It was Snape. Of course it was.

He tried to talk but only managed to make a faint groaning noise. Snape sighed and conjured a stretcher underneath him.

“You do have a talent for this.”

Harry coughed.

 

“Mr Potter, You do realise it has been less than a day since you were last in here?”

“S’rry.”

Harry thought he might have bitten his tongue at some point, It definitely hurt to speak.

Madam Pomfrey was fussing over him, clearing away the blood and healing cuts. She pulled his head to one side to look at a wound which stretched around behind his ear. Snape walked up from the office looking unimpressed. He handed Harry a tub of what turned out to be Bruise Balm.

Harry’s right arm was still refusing to move enough for him to unscrew the lid and Pomfrey decided it was dislocated at the shoulder. She cast a spell which wrenched it back into position, making Harry grunt in pain. He heard a sympathetic gasp.

Harry looked up to see Colin Creevey watching, wide-eyed from a few beds down. Harry gave him a friendly smile and waved with the arm that hurt least. Madame Pomfrey impatiently pulled a privacy screen across, blocking the Gryffindor from view.

Now able to move both arms, Harry could begin to apply the balm, watching as the bruises disappeared before his eyes.

“How many flights did you fall down?” Pomfrey asked, still inspecting his head.

Harry held up one finger. The matron took a double take, shifting his head so that she could look at his pupils instead. She lit her wand and shone it into each eye.

“That’s normal. Potter, let me look in your ears. Do you feel dizzy, nauseous?” Harry shook his head. “Do you have a headache?”

Harry just fixed her with a look. Of course he had a headache. Snape snorted in the background.

 “Can you remember what happened before you fell?” A nod. “And how you got here?” Harry paused for a second, then shook his head slowly.

How could he have forgotten? He remembered lying there on the landing, then Snape had appeared, then what? He drew a blank.

“Yes, you must have a concussion. Severus, could you fetch the potion?”

She took a look in Harry’s mouth, making him feel a bit like a farm animal. Luckily she noticed the blood in his mouth and had his tongue healed in an instant.

Snape returned moments later with a potion which looked like thin, yellow porridge. Harry choked it down as fast as he could, grateful when Madam Pomfrey handed him a glass of pumpkin juice to follow it down.

“You’ll have to stay here for a few hours, Mr Potter. I don’t want you disappearing off to sleep Merlin-knows-where, with memory loss no less.” Pomfrey bustled away to tidy up the mess she had made healing Harry.

“So what happened?” Snape asked, taking a seat next to the bed.

“Someone just pushed me down the stairs.” Harry said, still trying to believe it himself.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” Harry snapped. “I’m not a total idiot. And they put a blindfold on me, actually, if you want proof.”

Harry fished around on the stretcher next to him, luckily finding the strip of cloth. He had still had it clutched in his hand when Snape arrived, so he must have brought it with him. It still had some of his blood on it.

Snape took it from him carefully.

“Do you remember anything else? Who it was would be helpful? Their house or year?”

Harry shook his head, “No, I pushed past them on the stairs but I didn’t really look. They were older students and at least one was a guy. There was only a couple of them but they seemed pretty mad at me. One of them kicked me too, I think.”

Snape made a humming noise, “If you remember anything else, let me know. I will ask a few people to see if they saw anything. Perhaps one of the portraits was paying attention. Madame Pomfrey!”

The last was called through to the office at the back of the wing. The matron stuck her head out.

“Potter may have injuries to his side, it appears he was kicked too.”

Harry frowned at Snape, but the man ignored him, sweeping out through the double doors instead. He collapsed back into his pillows as Pomfrey came back over to examine him more closely.

 

Snape returned rather unexpectedly about half an hour later with Harry’s schoolbag and some extra Latin texts, as well as a book titled ‘Protecting Your Home – Siege Advice for the Wily Wizard’. Harry was surprised that Snape would do such a menial task, but it did allow him to be productive by planning some lessons and finishing work for his professors. As this was what he was going to do anyway, completing his work in the hospital wing wasn’t too irritating.

The extra book looked particularly helpful for his Second Years’ homework assignment. It included lots of fairly simple protective enchantments which could prove useful in an emergency and it had an entire section on dark creatures as well, which was exactly what he was covering.

At lunch time, Madame Pomfrey let him go with a warning to be careful, as well as instructions to come straight back if he experienced any of a wide range of random symptoms. Harry packed all of his things away and spoke understandingly to a melancholic Colin on his way out.

He hoped he could at least make it downstairs this time.

Nobody seemed to have anything for Harry to do after lunch, Snape had rushed off who knows where, after a brief meal, with instructions to Harry to stay out of trouble, so Harry did what he usually did on a Sunday just afternoon.

It might seem odd, but Harry was accustomed to having a detention every Sunday afternoon. Every week, Professor McGonagall caught him out of bounds at some point, and every week Harry found himself in her office, cleaning.

Really it was a bit of an excuse. Harry would make an effort to tidy the place up a little while McGonagall marked students’ work. When they were both finished, they usually chatted a bit. Often about quiddich or what was going on in lessons. McGonagall occasionally told him stories about his parents or the Marauders or about any of the hundreds of students she had taught.

He was a bit apprehensive this time. He didn’t know if she was going to be in her office, she could be somewhere else – she certainly had no reason to be expecting him. What if she had somebody else  there for detention? 

Harry stood staring at her office door for a long minute, trying to decide if he should knock or not.

The door opened and McGonagall peered out, jumping when she saw Harry standing right there.

“Potter, I had thought- Well, given everything-“

She sighed, collecting her thoughts and beginning again. “Would you like to come in? The kettle has just boiled.”

Harry smiled and nodded, following her back into the office. She ushered him into a chair, sorting out a pot of tea as she went. 

“Now, I know you’ve had the staff to talk to every day. But I want to know how you are really getting on.”

About an hour later, Harry left McGonagall’s office with a smile on his face and a biscuit in his pocket. He really did like McGonagall. She was loyal to a fault and could be fiercely protective too. He grinned when he remembered her reaction to him diving off into the great unknown yesterday. And he was touched by how concerned she was for him about what had happened this morning too. She had also promised to help look for Harry’s attackers.

 

Harry shifted his bookbag on his shoulder, conscious of how heavy it was with all of the textbooks he had been lugging around with him. That reminded him of something else which was strange. It had been so uncharacteristically nice of Snape to bring the bag up to him in the hospital wing. Mind you, a lot of what Snape had done over the past few days was uncharacteristic. 

He had been suspiciously nice to Harry, to the point that the boy suspected him of being under Polyjuice potion, he had actively sought out Harry’s help on a project he had obviously been thinking about for a long time, and he hadn’t blasted Harry into oblivion this morning when he had been disturbed before 5am. 

All in all, Harry felt that he was lucky to have survived the past few days, let alone have Snape delivering his personal effects and investigating on his behalf. 

Harry headed towards the library, hand ready on his wand in his pocket in case he came across any more problems. He hoped he could find some information on how to add sound to illusions, which would help him in his next teaching class, and anything which might be even remotely linked to his Herbology essay (It was due Monday morning and Harry had been stuck on it all weekend). Harry also slightly hoped that he might run into Hermione there. It would be good to see that she was okay after the chamber, he hadn’t forgotten the shock she had gotten when her feet had become stuck to the floor of the Chamber of Secrets. 

 

The library was fairly busy, as it usually was on a Sunday afternoon when every student realised they had wasted most of the weekend without doing any work. The half of the school which was more studious (or more stressed about exams) actually did something about this in the afternoon. Those who were more like Ron, reached peak stress at 8 o’clock and did their homework for the next day late into the night. Students were especially behind this week due to the unexpected volume of detentions everyone had had. McGonagall told Harry the staff had given the students leave from detentions at 4 o’clock today so that they could do something about this (McGonagall had passed the students she was responsible for onto Hagrid and Professor Vector).

Fortunately, it was far enough before the exams that the looming terror was instead only an occasional worry, and there was still a handful of good desks. Harry dumped his bag onto one of these and went off to gather all of the books that looked slightly promising, telling himself that he could take a break later by returning the ones he didn’t need. 

While making a pile of less and less likely Herbology books, Harry spotted Hermione watching him from an armchair where she was taking notes out of a huge, dusty book. He waved in what he thought was a friendly way, almost losing control of his book-stack as he did. He decided then that he probably had enough to be getting on with and took them back to his table, sitting down heavily. He was only starting to skim through the Herbology books, when the chair next to him was pulled out gently, and he was joined by Hermione. 

Harry looked up, expecting her to speak, but she just gave him a small smile and started to sort out her things. He shrugged to himself and kept on at what he was doing. 

 

Four books later, Harry let out a (quiet) triumphant shout. Hermione looked up at him and raised an eyebrow.

“Sorry,” He grinned, “I just found the book that Professor Sprout must have been thinking of when she came up with the essay homework. I didn’t think I’d be this lucky, I’ll shut up now.” 

Hermione reached over and lifted the front cover carefully so that she could see the title of the book. She was careful to not lose the page – with magical books, you could never be absolutely certain that the information would still be there when you opened it back up again. 

“Classification of Non-tradable Substances of the 18th Century?” Hermione looked totally baffled. “Why on earth did you pick this up?”

“Honestly, I picked up anything that I thought might help.” Harry gestured at the enormous pile of books in front of him. “I saw the twins buy a load of Snargluff pods off Dung last year at headquarters, and they said something about it. I hit dead ends everywhere else. I think I must have fallen asleep for that part of the class.”

Hermione looked equally impressed and exasperated. “Honestly, how can you possibly remember that, and not something from class last week?”

Harry grinned and shrugged, “I dunno, but it’d be good for an auror though, right?” 

Hermione couldn’t help but smile. “Could I borrow it when you’re done, please? I finished the essay the other day, but it would be a good idea to mention something about the regulations as well. I’m sure if I write it out again, smaller, then I can keep it within the parchment limit.”

“Course you can. It's full of references too, Sprout’ll love it. Wonder why everyone’s so obsessed with Snargaluff at the moment. What’re you up to?” Harry craned his neck to look at the book. And was surprised when Hermione enacted the cardinal sin of closing the book totally. Hermione looked a little surprised at herself too. 

She blushed a little, “Sorry, Harry. It’s a book for that extra thing Professor Snape said I could do – about why dark spells are classed as that and how it all has to do with emotion. It’s from the restricted section, and he would only sign the permission form if I promised that I wouldn’t let you read it.”

“Professor Snape said that?” Harry frowned.

“Yes. Well, you know what he can be like. He didn’t say anything about me telling you about it though, Harry. If you wanted-“

“No!”

Madame Pince shot them a look as she glided past, putting away books. 

“Sorry, Hermione. But it’s okay, really. If Professor Snape said that I shouldn’t read about that stuff, then I think I should follow the spirit of the instructions, rather than the letter. He is actually trying to help.” 

Hermione nodded, “That’s… very mature of you, Harry. I shouldn’t have assumed you would- I mean usually-”

“It’s fine, normally I probably would have been a bit mad about it. But the teachers have got their reasons for doing things, you know? I’ve been spending a lot of time around them.” He frowned, “Apart from Dumbledore, I’m still trying to figure him out at the moment.”

“Don’t forget about us though,” Hermione said, “I know everything is mad right now, but it’s important that you spend some time with us where we can actually talk. But I know that you’re busy.”

“I didn’t want to get in the way,” Harry said, sheepishly. “I wasn’t sure how everyone would react to everything and I didn’t want to make everything more difficult for you or Ron.”

She paused for a moment thinking, "It’s been such a strange few days, and some people have been really cross about the whole thing. Half of Gryffindor still won’t talk to me because I went to Professor McGonagall about the fight."

"I can guess," Harry said wryly. He explained quickly what had happened to him in the morning to Hermione's shock.

"Oh, but that's awful!" She exclaimed. "It's good that the professors are going to do something about it though."

"I guess."

Hermione was silent for a good minute for a minute, “I’ve got it – how we can spend more time together. Are you still going to take the potions NEWT? Even though you can’t be in the class?”

“I was thinking about it.” Harry said, cautiously.

“Well we have some free periods at the same time still, what about meeting to brew? You would have to do it anyway, Professor Slughorn says that I need practice actually making and adjusting potions, and students aren’t allowed to brew by themselves anyway. And Ron could come if he wanted to- he’s having a nap at the moment since we had to get up early for detentions.” 

“I suppose that would work.” Harry said. “Would the staff be okay with it?”

“They’ve never said we couldn’t.” Hermione said, “You could check with Professor Snape, since you’re getting on so well.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “I can just see the look on his face- ‘Potter if I had known that you wanted to suffocate yourself in Expanding Solution, I would have left you to it as a second year.’” 

“It’s worth a try though.” Hermione said.

 

“Why are you asking me?” Snape said, baffled. He looked totally confused as to how he had managed to sit down for dinner between the two teenagers at the staff table. Especially at the weekend, when he did his absolute best to be as child-free as possible. 

Harry could hear Professor Sprout chuckling from the chair at his other side. He blocked that out, deciding that he definitely should have waited to catch the man on his way to supervising the junior school preparation. 

“Well, Sir, you were Potions Master here for over a decade. You did teach me for the last five years, and you are very… well versed in the rules of the school.”

“And Professor Slughorn has a minor conniption every time Potter’s name is mentioned.” Malfoy added, not looking their way.

Harry blinked, surprised that he felt no anger towards the Slytherin. “That too. And the headmaster shows up whenever I get within ten yards of Professor Slughorn.”

“And you are still avoiding him?” Snape said, trying to embarrass Harry into shutting up.

“Yeah, pretty much.” Harry agreed.

“And doesn’t Miss Granger know?”

“Nope, it was her idea to ask you actually. But at the time she was distracting me from asking about some book that you don’t want me to read.”

“Potter, I couldn’t care less-“

“Don’t worry, I didn’t even ask her what the title was.”

Snape sighed, looking gloomily at the chicken he had been trying to enjoy in peace. He was as surprised as Harry when Draco leaned forward. 

“Potter, you are allowed to brew within an unused potions classroom, as long as a resident potions master is aware you are doing so at that time, and they are happy that you have satisfied all safety requirements and are capable enough to attempt the brews you are planning. And you have to purchase the ingredients yourself and arrange for their safe storage.”

Harry stared at the blond boy. “Thanks, Malfoy.”

“Don’t mention it.” He muttered, turning back to his plate. Harry caught a glimpse of a web of pale lines running across the skin of the boy’s neck, down towards his collarbone. 

“Jesus- is that-“

Malfoy looked up and saw where Harry was looking, he flinched, then grimaced. “Ah- definitely don’t mention that.” He said quickly. He pulled the collar of his robes up to cover more of his neck. 

“Sorry,” Harry said, horrified and guilty.

Snape growled, pushing back his chair and standing up. “If you two imbeciles are not going to stop talking, then I am going to get some actual work done.”

Malfoy glanced up in slight panic, but saw Harry rolling his eyes and calmed a little. Snape nodded to them both and left them to their food. 

Harry thought about starting a conversation with Malfoy, but decided that it was Malfoy’s right to not have to talk to him if he didn’t want to. So he focussed on eating his way through the pile of sweet waffles that he had mistaken for potato ones. 

“Merlin, if you don’t want to eat them, Potter, you don’t have to. You look like someone is forcing them down your throat."

Harry stopped his process of washing the waffles systematically with large mouthfuls of pumpkin juice. 

“Sorry,” he said, “Force of habit. I put it on my plate, so…”

“Muggles have weird customs.” Draco sniffed.

Harry looked at him, incredulous, “I think it’s more of a not wasting food thing, than a muggle thing, to be honest.” 

Malfoy thought about that for a second, before glancing down at the emptying house tables, where you could see Justin Finch-Fletchley’s plate was piled with half finished food, and Ginny Weasley, taking half a slice of bread so that she could finish the food on her plate. 

Malfoy lost his look of arrogance for a second, turning thoughtful, and Harry was vividly reminded of Narcissa Malfoy, and felt a twinge in his insides. 

“Your muggles are poor?” Draco asked sharply. 

Harry raised an eyebrow at him. “Did I say that?” he asked. He glanced at his watch, having noticed that the tables were much emptier of younger students than he had expected. 

“I have to go. I’m watching some of the little kids for prep time while Professor Snape is in charge of it. Good luck with teaching tomorrow- you have your first class, don’t you?”

Malfoy nodded, suspiciously. “Yes, I am teaching the third year classes.”

“Have fun with it then- it’s pretty cool trying new stuff out. It really confuses the professors too. Imagine Professor McGonagall's face if you played a game with them.” Harry jumped out of his seat and started out towards the library again. 

“So that’s why he does it.” Professor Sprout muttered to her mashed potato. "It's to drive Severus mad."

Malfoy managed to not look at her like she was totally crazy and he counted that as a success. 

He heard a familiar hoot, and looked up in time to see his eagle owl emerge through one of the high windows of the Great Hall. He swallowed nervously. It had been about a week since he had last sent a letter to his mother. After the fight, Dumbledore had told him not to. It seemed she had taken matters into her own hands. His owl dropped the letter and perched on the table expectantly. Draco reached out to flip the letter over, to see his name on the front, and was prevented by jumping when there was a flash of light and a piece of parchment appeared in in front of him.

 

Mr Malfoy, I would like to see you at your convenience in my office. Please bring any mail you may receive with you, I advise you see me prior to opening any correspondence.

A.P.W.B.D

 

Draco frowned at the note, sweeping it to the side to reach his letter. Dumbledore had said that there might be trouble, but that there would be a few days at least before Draco had to decide anything. Draco wished he could find Snape instead. He picked up the envelope and glanced at his name on the front, prepared to tear it open and to hell with Dumbledore, when his hands thought faster than his brain and dropped it.

Draco Malfoy

Just his name, simple and elegant and neatly written. But so wrong. He knew his mother’s handwriting so well, she had sent him a letter every day in his first year. This wasn’t it. This handwriting he had only seen over the course of the last winter, as his aunt had dutifully tried to tutor him in spells he might need to complete his task.

Suddenly, having someone nearby when he opened the letter seemed like a much more appealing prospect.

 

 

Harry had detoured past his bedroom and dropped off all of the books he didn’t need imminently. The snake guardian had fallen asleep already by the time he left, with fifteen minutes to spare before he needed to be at the library. Somewhat anxiously, he walked out past the Defence classroom, wondering if Snape had made any progress in finding whoever had attacked Harry.

The stairs were busy now, all of the remaining students heading up from dinner to either detention or the library for the older students, or the little kids to preparation, to do their homework for that week’s classes.

There were streams of students shuffling past each other in all directions. Apart from on one of the landings, just a little way down from the one Harry was watching from. It was strange enough for Harry to go take a closer look, and as he got closer to the small group of students, he realised why.

It was odd for different year groups to mingle in Hogwarts, especially when those students were from different houses. On this landing, there was two Ravenclaw seventh year students; a boy and a girl, and two Slytherin boys, Harry recognised them as two of his second years, Etienne Zabini and Barnabas Granville. They seemed to be having an argument, and the Slytherins drew their wands suddenly, not having seen Harry coming towards them behind the Ravenclaws. Before Harry could say anything to any of them, the Ravenclaw boy laughed and leaned over to simply snatch the wand out of one of their hands, he pointed this at the other Slytherin.

“Go on then, try your best. I bet I can do better with this than you can with yours.” He challenged.

“Luckily, neither of you needs to try.” Harry said firmly, pushing past the Ravenclaws to stand between them. He stared at the 7th years, who eyed him coolly, but didn’t move. Harry left his wand firmly in his pocket and thought furiously about what to do if one of the students did something stupid.

“Potter, you got out of the Hospital wing fast.” He heard from behind him.

“I’m resilient, Etienne.” He said dryly, not turning around. He mostly trusted the boy to not curse him or the Ravenclaw, and he couldn’t say that for the older boy. Between the heads of the two Ravenclaw students, he saw Dennis Creevey running down the stairs, “Dennis!”

The Gryffindor’s head spun as he looked around for the source of his name, he spotted the five of them easily enough and hurried over. “Harry?”

“Dennis, run over to the library and fetch Professor Snape. If he isn’t there, go to charms for Flitwick.”

Dennis nodded, eyes wide and set off at a run.

The Ravenclaw boy sneered at Harry. “Always send little kids off to do the work for you, Potter?”

The girl beside him laughed mockingly, “And if they don’t do what you want, then you just run for Snape these days, isn’t that right?”

Harry raised an eyebrow at the pair of them, “At least I don’t go around picking fights with little kids.”

“They drew their wands first, Potter. That’s a challenge in duelling terms.”

“Not at school, it isn’t.” Harry said firmly.

The boy snorted, “Hypocrite.”

“We wouldn’t have got our wands out if they hadn’t stopped us first.” Granville said from behind him. Harry thought he was being rather stupid for someone without a wand. “They were threatening us, said that if we said anything to Snape then we’d have to watch ourselves on the staircase too.”

The Ravenclaw’s eyes hardened and Harry felt a knot in his stomach. It looked like these four students knew quite a lot about Harry’s accident this morning. He fought to not look nervous and wished for the first time that he had his wand in his hand instead of going for the peaceful option. Or that he had a trick up his sleeve. He hoped they wouldn’t consider using the confundus charm on him and the second years, but with the resolve he could see in their eyes, he suspected they might even attempt Obliviate.

Second years were idiots, he thought.

“Second years are idiots,” The girl said. “Or maybe that’s just everyone who spends time with your pet Death Eater Snape?”

“Don’t you say anything about him!” Zabini spat. Harry threw out his arm behind himself to stop the boy from raising his wand. “He’s better than your head of house- Flitwick can’t even tell when his students are out trying to murder someone. And he had to be woken up from his afternoon nap when you idiots started a riot in his corridor.”

“That will do, Mr Zabini,” A familiar voice startled them all. “You are being a little harsh. After all, Professor Flitwick was technically at choir rehearsal.”

They all spun to see Professor Snape standing on the staircase just above them, Dennis Creevey standing wide-eyed and breathless behind him.

“Wands down,” He barked, “Roth, return Granville’s wand before you drop it. Zabini, put yours away before I confiscate it, and Potter-“

Snape stared at Harry for a second, as the boy waited for the inevitable insult. Snape looked slightly surprised though, presumably because Harry’s wand hadn’t left its pocket.

“Potter, would you escort my students upstairs? It seems I will need you to take all of the first and second years. You can manage that? It is a Sunday, so they may leave when they show you their completed work.”

Harry blinked back at him for a moment, surprised that that was it.

“Yes sir.” He nodded. He finally looked at Granville and Zabini and beckoned to them to follow him. Zabini hesitated.

“Professor, did you hear that they-“

“Yes, I will deal with it.”

Zabini nodded, a little less tense now.

 

Turning a corner, Harry was happy to get away from the confrontation on the landing.

“So how did you know it was them this morning?” Harry asked them, curious. “You weren’t there were you?”

He didn’t think they could have been – he would have hoped that they could have found a Professor sooner than he had.

“No, we left dinner early.” Granville hesitated. “We were playing hide and seek to be honest. Grand staircase rules. I was behind the wall, it’s got spyholes there. Etti snuck up behind me, and I might’ve shouted, and they caught us back where the passage meets the staircase.”

“We would have been fine if you hadn’t shouted,” Etienne said, a little sulkily.

“Don’t worry about it guys, Snape’ll sort it out.” Harry said, hoping to avoid an argument. He tried to think of something more light-hearted to talk about.

“I heard you caught the snitch yesterday.” He said to Granville, who looked pretty upset. “Madame Hooch told me- she sounded pretty impressed.”

Zabini nodded, still solemn. “Yeah, Barny’s wicked fast at catching.”

“I’d make a terrible chaser though,” Granville said, miserably. “I can’t even hold onto my own wand.”

“That’s not a problem.” Harry said, reassuringly, to two scornful looks. “I’m serious, you need a loose grip for most spells, if you get too worried about losing it, then you really won’t be any use.”

“I’m even more useless without my wand.” The boy pointed out.

“So practice a shield charm.” Harry said, “Everyone should be able to cast one fast enough to deflect an Expelliarmus, it’s one of the slowest spells out there.”

“That’s still not going to help if they just pull it out of my hand.”

“Ah. Well - you want to know exactly what to do if that happens again?” Harry asked.

Granville looked confused, and Zabini shrugged at him, clueless.

“Just punch them in the nose,” Harry laughed. The boys stared at him for a second and then laughed too. “I’m serious. Wizards never expect it. They’ll do what that Ravenclaw hippo did and stand there with it, jeering at you. Punch them in the nose and they’ll probably drop it.”

Granville chuckled. “It’s a shame though- I probably can’t reach his nose.”

Harry nodded, seriously. “That is a problem. I suppose you’ll just have to knee him real hard, then punch him in the nose when he keels over.”

“Best defence advice ever.” Zabini said, looking decidedly happier.

 

They reached the study room, from which they could hear a quiet chatter. The noise died down instantly as Harry opened the door. It took the wide-eyed students a moment to realise that it was Harry there, and it not Snape returning. A few of them sighed with relief.

Zabini and Granville were still half-chuckling as they came in and made their ways to their seats, and this seemed to make the other students relax too, going back to their conversations. Harry let this continue while he made his way to the dais and set up his things at the table, but there was no sign of the conversations subsiding, even as he sat looking out at them.

Harry thought that he had been lucky in his experiences so far, none of his classes had rioted, nobody had been blown up, or turned into something unpleasant in a complicated transfiguration incident. But he had yet to deal with the crazed masses of the entire assembled first and second years.  

After a moment of internal panic about how to get their attention, Harry stood up again and walked slowly to stand in front of his desk. Luckily Granville and Zabini noticed him getting up, and they shushed the Slytherins they were sitting with. The Ravenclaws, not to be outdone, fell silent quickly, and Harry saw one of them snatch a book off Emily Jacks, and hide it under one of their own textbooks. The Gryffindor and Hufflepuff first years seemed to be having a spitball battle with some straws Harry suspected had been bought from the Weasley twins, but eventually they noticed that the even their housemates were silent, and they lowered their weapons to look at Harry too.

Harry cleared his throat and folded his arms – feeling awkward with all the attention, but feeling determined to not show it.

“Professor Snape is a bit caught up at the moment, so he can’t be here. But unfortunately, you still have to get your homework done.” Harry smiled down at them, feeling a bit like Professor Lupin “You can talk between yourselves, but you have to finish your work. When you are done, come and show me, and you have the rest of your evening free. I’d suggest you get everything done quickly. And I’m warning you, I will keep you here until curfew if you don’t get done.”

They stared up at him, expressions ranging from grouchy to carefree.

“And you can ask for advice, of course.” He finished somewhat lamely. There was a knock at the door as he finished and Harry jumped down from the dais to answer it, instead of walking the long way around to the stairs. He waved at the students as he walked past- to usher them towards their books and was relieved to see that they started.

Opening the door to the corridor, Harry was surprised to see Draco Malfoy standing there, looking anxious.

“Can I…help?” Harry asked.

Malfoy folded his arms, and then unfolded them again very quickly. Slouching a little, with one hand elegantly in his pocket. He reminded Harry a little of Sirius, a kind of practiced dishevelment.

“Need any help, Potter?”

Harry felt his eyebrows shoot up, and brought them under control.

“If you like.” He nodded, surprised by the offer. He wondered if Malfoy had been told anything about Harry’s dream the night before.

Harry grabbed a chair from one of the student tables and sat next to Malfoy at the top table, both working on essays. It seemed Harry had barely started writing about illusions (he had decided to kill two birds with one stone by writing about his own research for classes, to fit Flitwick’s essay prompt), when a queue had formed of questions.

Three students waited, two second years- a Hufflepuff Harry did not know the name of, and the clumsy Gryffindor Goodwin, and a first year.

“What subject?” Harry asked, thinking it would be better to screen them first.

“Herbology.”

“Charms.”

“History.”

Harry glanced at Malfoy, who sighed deeply.

“I will take the History, you take Herbology, and first finished takes Charms?” Malfoy offered.

“Deal!” Harry’s OWL result for History of Magic had been Dreadful, which he felt gave him no right to help anyone with History, even if he had passed out and given up halfway through the exam.

Harry turned to Goodwin, with her Herbology question. As luck would have it, it was about Mandrakes, a lesson that Harry had actually paid attention to, and which had come up again last year, and in potions.

 

Harry suspected that the students ended up taking slightly longer than they would have done if Snape had been taking preparation, but they all seemed to get enough finished fast enough to leave before curfew. The final student was Emily Jacks, who had been having an argument with Malfoy for about twenty minutes about apparition and red shoes, and flying monkeys. But eventually even she was dragged away by a bored housemate.

Malfoy pinched the bridge of his nose in a move which was very reminiscent of Snape. Harry chuckled.

“It’s not just me that thinks she’s absolutely mad then?” Harry said.

Malfoy looked up quickly, seeming to just notice that him and Harry were alone.

“Erm, no. She is insane.” Malfoy flinched at the word, and there was an uncomfortable silence. Harry used it to pack his things away.

Harry was just fastening his bag when Malfoy made a strangled noise. Harry looked up at the other boy, who had made no move to pack up, and was fidgeting with a quill.

“Potter,” He hesitated, scratching at the desk, “I wanted to ask – my mother…” Malfoy trailed off.

“I know” Harry said sympathetically. Instead of the reaction Harry had been expecting, Malfoy’s eyes met his, wide with panic.

“Wait – you know what? I don’t know anything!”