Weekly tea turned out to be one of Albus's better ideas. If he had had any doubts previously as to the state of Harry's life with the Dursleys, they had completely vanished because in the past two months Harry had absolutely flourished. While the boy had always been reasonably talented in his classes, his grades had showed a marked improvement recently, which Albus credited in part to this being the first time Harry had adults paying positive attention to his scholastic achievement. Tellingly, his Potions grade had always been a bit higher than what he received in other classes, and hadn't showed the same recent improvement. Harry's increased scholastic achievement could likely also be accounted for by Severus's discovery that Harry was much more invested in learning something that he could see a personal and practical use for. So conversations on Harry's school work had begun often including a brainstorming session on how he might be able to use the spell in the future - an idea the Filius had been so taken with, he had started including it in his assigned homework as a matter of course.

Less tangibly, Harry seemed more open and confident than he had before as well. Honestly, he had always appeared to be a well-adjusted child, remarkably so given what he had gone through, to the point that it was entirely possible, likely even, that without Severus bringing the matter to their attention, Harry's problems would have remained unnoticed. But with his current attitude to serve as a contrast, it was abundantly apparent that what had appeared as natural reserve and modesty were in fact the product of having it repeatedly browbeat into him that no one could possibly ever care about his thoughts or feelings or wants or just him in general. Harry was now recovering, slowly, but much quicker than Albus would have suspected he would. Evidence that Harry was clearly a remarkably adaptable and resilient child.

The one regret Albus had regarding these little get-togethers, aside from the fact that he hadn't started them sooner, was that after their first Christmas tea, Albus didn't get to spend any of them one-on-one with Harry. Severus had a standing invitation to join them, one that he never technically accepted in so many words - on the two occasions that Albus had explicitly asked, he had received a vague ‘if I'm not busy' as a response - but the man never failed to appear. Albus had also gotten into the habit of asking one other staff member to join them as well, though he somehow kept forgetting to extend an invitation to Quirinus and Sybill. Harry was allowed to bring guests too, though after the occasion when he'd brought all the first year girls from Gryffindor and Slytherin - "they keep complaining it's not fair, and I just wanted to get it all over with at once" - he had a hard cap of four other students on any given afternoon. (That incident had also inspired Albus to start taking tea with other students throughout the week, which was proving to be immensely popular, with some of the students at least.)

Today, Harry was joined by only Neville Longbottom, invited on Albus's recommendation. Meanwhile Albus was flanked, at the small table in his office that had had to be transfigured larger so much of late Albus was considering just leaving it that way, by Severus - of course - and Minerva. Which left one empty chair between Minerva and Neville.

"Are we waiting on someone else, Professor?" Harry asked.

"Yes, it appears our last guest is running a bit late. I'm sure he won't mind if we start without him," Albus said, as he began pouring tea for everyone.

"Who's running a bit late?" Severus asked, his tone suggesting that he thought Albus was Up To Something (emphasis, Severus's, or at least that's how Albus imagined he would emphasize it).

"Well Severus, if you had only formally RSVP'd to my invitation to tea today, then I would have been happy to get you a guest list. Do help yourself to some food," Albus said, which was of course a complete non-answer. Minerva cast him an amused look, she being one of the few other people that understood how much fun it was to tease Severus.

Before Severus, or possibly one of the boys, could press the issue, a whooshing sort of noise came from the fireplace, announcing the arrival of the aforementioned guest.

"Sorry I'm late," said Remus Lupin, pulling his robes straight where they had come a bit askew in his journey through the floo network.

"Don't worry about it. So good to see you again Remus; please, come join us," said Albus, gesturing to the empty chair.

Severus was glaring at Albus with look number 10, "I don't like surprises, and I dislike this one in particular" (which was different from look number 19, "I don't like surprises, and I dislike this one in particular," in that the former designated a surprise that Severus genuinely found distasteful, while the latter was for surprise that Severus would have liked, and thereby felt obligated to find extra hateful on principle). Albus returned the look with an expression that reminded Severus that this moment should not have been any great surprise, as Albus had told him about his intentions both to have Remus and Harry spend some time getting to know each other and to hire Remus as a member of the Hogwarts staff next year. Severus's expression then morphed into the highly accusatory look number 22 "We had an arrangement." Albus replied to that with a look meant to communicate, that yes they did have an arrangement, and of course Albus wouldn't be making any attempts to foster Harry with Remus today, or at any point without first speaking with Severus to allow him one last chance to offer up an alternative. Severus glared at Albus a moment or two longer, then shifted back just a bit in his chair, satisfied, or at least as satisfied as he would allow himself to be given the situation.

The whole exchange took only a few seconds, less time than it took Remus to cross the room and take his seat. "Good afternoon Headmaster, Severus, Professor McGonagall," he said, offering them each a nod in turn.

"Good afternoon, Remus. And under the circumstances, I think Minerva is fine," the woman replied. To her students, certainly the current and possibly the former as well, her tone likely sounded the same as it ever did, but Albus could hear the warm fondness underneath.

"Thank you, Minerva," Remus said, and then he turned to the two boys next to him. "And you both must be Harry and Neville. My name is Remus Lupin."

"Hello Mr. Lupin, It's nice to meet you," Harry said, with Neville echoing the sentiment. Social niceties complete, Harry turned to Minerva and asked, "What circumstances, ma'am?"

Minerva glanced over at Albus, obviously seeking is guidance as to how much he wanted students to know. "As far as I'm aware the matter is settled, isn't it?" Albus said. He looked over at Minerva and Remus and they both agreed with his assertion. "Well then, no reason to keep it a secret."

Minerva let out a very small sound that she could probably reasonably claim had not been a snort of amusement. She had accused Albus just the other day, shortly after she had heard from Severus that Albus was attempting to quietly make arrangements for Remus to step in as Harry's guardian, of being pathologically addicted to keeping things a secret, and his claims that he had been meaning to tell her about Remus, but had been distracted by other matters, fell on deaf ears. And yes, maybe he did have a slight tendency to play things a little too close to the chest a little too often, but there was often a strategic value in secrecy. It certainly wasn't an addiction.

Having apparently made whatever point it was she wanted to make, Minerva turned her gaze to the two children. "You may not be aware, but the current population of Hogwarts is actually quite small and has been, for various reasons, for the past, oh twenty years would you say, Headmaster?"

"Twenty, perhaps even twenty-five," Albus agreed.

"The point being, when I was offered the post of Deputy Headmistress, there were relatively few students enrolled. Because of that, and since I was reluctant to give up teaching, the Headmaster agreed that if I believed I could manage both jobs, then I would be allowed to do so. Which I have been doing for the past thirteen years now, however, we expect that the incoming class sizes are going to be getting much larger, starting two years from now probably. As such, the Headmaster and I thought it was time to revisit the number of duties I have taken on, thinking it would be wise to make any changes now before things start to get to be too much. We came to the decision that I will continue on as Deputy Headmistress and Head of Gryffindor and will keep teaching the two N.E.W.T. level Transfiguration classes, but the first through fifth year classes would be taught by someone else."

"Which would be where I come in," interjected Remus. "I'm afraid I'm not quite as good at transfiguration as Professor McGonagall, but I still hope you both enjoy having me as your professor next year."

"Don't be so modest, you got your N.E.W.T. in the subject, didn't you?" Minerva said.

"He got an O on it, as a matter of fact," Albus said, having recently reviewed Remus's N.E.W.T. results in order to best figure out where to stick him on staff.

"See, that's a good deal more than most people. You'll do just fine," Minerva concluded with a tone of finality.

"Oh, I'm sure I know the material, I only meant that I never had that particular gift for the subject the like in the way you have, or James did."

"James?" Harry piped in. "Do you mean my dad, Professor Lupin?" It was an amusing assumption, given how very common the name James was, but then children tended to be especially focused and single-minded when it came to the things they were interested in. And then of course, there was the fact that Harry was completely correct.

"Yes, your father and I went to school together; he was one of my best friends, actually. And I'm not your professor yet, I think just Remus will be fine until next year, Harry, and you too Neville," Remus said.

"Do you mean you were best friends with my dad just like Professor Snape was best friends with my mum?" Harry asked, sitting straight up in his chair and regarding the man eagerly.

Remus regarded Severus with a brief look of surprise - which was rather odd, actually; Albus wouldn't have mentioned it because Severus had specifically made him promise not to, but it seemed like everyone else who discovered that Harry had knew of the former friendship between Severus and Lily was surprised by the knowledge. Had Severus gone around and extracted promises of silence from every one of his Hogwarts' acquaintances? - before turning to Harry and saying, "A little like that, yes. Though your dad and I were one of a group of four, rather than just the two of us."

"Mr. Remus?" Neville said, his tentative bearing a study in opposites almost, when compared with Harry's excited mien. Despite that, Harry didn't show the slightest bit of impatience with Neville for interrupting Harry's thrilling discovery, and indeed looked just as attentive to whatever Neville wished to say as Remus did. "My Gran says that my mum and dad were really good friends with Harry's parents before they... er, before."

Remus favoured Neville with a kind smile, appearing to understand the unspoken question in Neville's words. "Yes they were, though I got to know Frank before Lily and James did, because he was Head Boy back when I was a fifth year prefect. Alice I didn't meet until after we graduated from Hogwarts, since she was a year older and in Hufflepuff, but I understand that she and Lily became friends at some point during our Hogwarts years."

"They met during that incident in our fourth year," Severus said.

"You mean the Prank War of 1975?" Albus asked. (Not to be confused with the Prank War of 1775, which Albus was given to understand involved a good number more severed fox heads, and most of those had actually been real.) He was quite amused to see Minerva, who despite never calling Voldemort by his chosen appellation also never seemed all that disturbed when Albus did so, flinch very visibly at the mention of that event. It seemed a bit of an over dramatic reaction - she hadn't even had to catch all the mice by herself, once Albus had gotten Argus his new kitten.

"What was the Prank War of 1975?" Harry asked. (This time Minerva did not flinch, much to Albus's and, it appeared, Severus's disappointment.)

"It was quite a lot of misbehaviour that got very out of hand before the troublemakers were caught," Minerva said stiffly, her tone indicating that she saw no reason for further discussion on the matter.

"Oh, come now Minerva," Albus said. "It was an amusing interlude in retrospect, and I don't think there can be any harm in telling the boys a story about their parents getting up to a little bit of mischief."

Minerva sniffed, making quite clear her opinion on his choice of phrasing, but relented just the same. "Fine, as long as both you boys know that we are in no way encouraging the sort of behaviour that takes place in this story."

"Yes ma'am," Harry and Neville said diligently, before turning to Albus, clearly eager to hear the story.

"Severus, why don't you start us off? I believe you were when the whole thing began," Albus said.

"Well, I would say it began when James Potter and his gang resolved to prank their way through their years at Hogwarts, a decision-making process I can happily report I was not a part of, and I recommend you apply to Lupin if you want more details on that," Severus said smoothly. Remus looked a bit embarrassed by Severus's pronouncement, but not unduly offended, and given both that and the fact that it was a reasonably fair assessment on Severus's part, Albus let the jab pass unremarked on. "But if you are referring to the catalyst that set off the series of unfortunate events known as the Prank War of 1975, that took place one evening when Lily decided that she had had enough of that little group's pranking ways, and convinced myself and the rest of the Gryffindor girls of her year to get them back by pulling, quote, the ultimate prank."

From there Severus and Remus took alternate turns telling the story, with occasional interjections from Albus. The two men did a very good job playing up the roles that James, Lily, Alice, and even Frank had played in whole affair, especially given that by the end the battle lasted two and a half months, spanned every room and hallway in the castle except for the ones that had a password that couldn't be got around and, by some odd coincidence, the northwest corridor on the second floor, and involved the entirety of Gryffindor, a little over half of Hufflepuff, one Slytherin boy - that was, there had been only one Slytherin that they could ever prove was involved, and even now Severus remained exceedingly cagey about what his housemates had been up to at the time - three ghosts, sixteen and a half paintings, no less than eight House Elves, a medium sized cluster of young Acromantula, and one large black dog that was generally assumed to have been a stray smuggled in from Hogsmeade. It was hard to say how long things might have gone on, had they not been brought to an abrupt stop by Professor Slughorn after he got caught between James Potter and Sirius Black, who were on opposite sides of the war at that point because they claimed it to be more fun that way, in what was really a waste of a perfectly good set of encyclopaedias (though Albus believed it was the gravy stains that Horace couldn't get out of his robes that really set him off). Harry and Neville expressed some disappointment at the rather anticlimactic end to it all, but both Severus and Remus rushed to assure the boys that it only seemed that way because they hadn't witnessed Slughorn in the direct aftermath.

"And once we managed to unearth all the troublemakers they were each assigned two weeks' detention and lost five house points apiece," Minerva said, taking up the flow of the narrative for the first time. "I originally wanted it to be twenty points, but that would have put both Gryffindor and Hufflepuff in the negative numbers."

"As I recall, Ravenclaw won the House Cup quite handily that year," Albus mused.

"Not handily, Slytherin only lost by six points," Severus corrected. It was an odd and very specific thing to remember so precisely, but then Albus supposed it must have been a point of pride or honour or something of the sort for Severus that being the only Slytherin (definitively proven to be) involved in the affair had not been the tipping point that lost them the title that year.

"And really, the detentions weren't that bad," Remus volunteered. "Scrubbing the floor of the Great Hall and the Entrance Hall with a toothbrush sounds awful, but it goes much easier when you have that many people helping you." Remus's tone had an upbeat cast to it that matched his words, but neither of those stopped Harry and Neville from looking horrified at the notion. Which was very likely the point, given the surreptitious wink Albus caught Remus throwing Minerva's way.

Despite what could be arguably considered an unhappy ending, it was clear that both Harry and Neville had been complete enthralled by the story. Harry, of course, had never had anyone willing to tell him stories about his parents until he had come to Hogwarts, and as for Neville... Alice and Frank Longbottom weren't dead from a medical perspective, but that was the emotional truth of the situation for many of the people that had been close to them. And people did have a somewhat misguided tendency to only speak of the best qualities of the dead. It was a well-meant impulse, but one that often left listeners with an overly noble caricature of the deceased, that could never feel like as vibrantly real a person as the young woman running down the corridors covered in pixie dust with a muzzle in hand, screaming dire retribution on ‘that shampoo stealing dog.'

That one story ate up a good deal of time in the telling, but the boys managed to wrangle a few more out of the adults, and Remus even managed to get in a couple of questions about how Harry and Neville were enjoying their own school days, before Minerva reminded them all of the time and excused herself to work on some grading. Remus left soon thereafter.

"So Harry, did you enjoy meeting Remus; should I invite him for tea again, do you think?" Albus asked shortly after the man in question had left.

He had been expecting an enthusiastic response - Harry had been especially animated during their time together today - and so was a bit nonplussed to see the boy biting his lip in consideration. "Would that bother you, Professor Snape? Only, I got the feeling that you two didn't get on very well back in school."

Albus saw a brief flicker of surprise cross Severus's face at the consideration, but it was quickly hidden behind the man's usual mask. Albus hadn't expected this particular turn himself, though by all rights he probably should have. Albus might have waited to ask Harry his question until after Severus had left if the thought had occurred to him, or he might not have, but it was irrelevant now anyway. What was done was done, and now they were faced with the moment of truth.

Well, not of truth, precisely. After watching them today, Albus was quite certain that the truth was that Severus was still a bit uncomfortable around Remus, and whether or not he'd ever fully be able to get past that was yet to be seen. But if Severus shared that unvarnished truth with Harry, Albus was almost equally certain that Harry would not agree to Remus's guardianship when Albus asked him, something that Severus was no doubt able to tell as well. Yes, Harry would probably still hold a fondness for Remus regardless, and if it were put to Harry as a choice between his aunt and uncle or Remus, Harry would go with Remus. But Albus had no intention of forcing the decision on Harry in that way, and even if Harry still liked Remus, Albus didn't think the trust would be there anymore.

That's what this moment was really, a moment of trust. Both Albus's trust that Severus would do what he thought was right, regardless of personal feeling, and, far more importantly, the trust Harry had placed in Severus to look out for him. As such, despite any small private misgivings, Albus stayed silent and let Severus come to the decision on his own.

What that decision would have been they would never know, because at that moment Neville said softly, but with a full measure of conviction, "I would like to see Mr. Remus again."

Neville Longbottom. Albus would readily admit to having something of a favourite in Harry - though in his defence, Lily Potter had at one time managed, and despite being present when it happened Albus was still not entirely certain how, to convince Albus to change one of infant Harry's nappies, which was not a bond Albus shared with most of his students. But over the course of the past year, Albus had found himself intrigued by Neville. At first, Albus merely found himself grateful on the uncertain and stumbling boy's behalf that he didn't have to bear the burden that may one day yet fall on Harry's shoulders; it seemed very likely that the boy would have broken under the pressure. But in time, Albus had come to see a core of steel underneath the self-conscious exterior. It was all the more impressive to Albus because that sort of quiet bravery was something that Albus had rarely managed himself. He rather thought that Neville Longbottom would not have let Grindelwald go on for as long as he had.

This opinion of Neville was not one Severus shared - ‘tends to see the worst in students' was at the top of the ‘areas that could use improvement' on Severus's teacher evaluation every year - but even he seemed impressed by Neville's uncommon moment of confidence. Or, at least, Albus thought he was; it was a bit difficult to tell as Severus did not respond to Neville's comment in any way, merely gave the boy a mild considering look for a moment before turning back to Harry.

"I should hope that when you are my age, you don't allow schoolboy grudges to dictate your actions. You certainly shouldn't censor your wishes on my account." And with that he bid them all good afternoon, his robes billowing particularly impressively as he swept out.

Harry turned back from watching Severus leave, his brow furrowed in confusion. "Why is Professor Snape always so embarrassed about being nice?"

Albus let out a burst of surprised and delighted laughter. "I wish I could tell you Harry, but I honestly don't understand it myself."

Harry pulled a face at that and looked at Neville. "Adults are weird."