It was not unusual for Severus Snape to be considered . . . hmm, let’s say grumpy, at best, but the weather they’d been having recently meant he very definitely wasn’t a happy bunny. Fierce April thunderstorms had been rolling around the Scottish countryside for two weeks, and in between deafening thunder and blindingly-bright lightning, it was hot and muggy enough to leave everyone drooping in sweaty misery.
Apparently, even the house-elves’ No-Melt Ice Cream couldn’t compete, Severus reflected, ruefully, staring at the sticky chocolate mess his fingers had become after a short walk of just two corridors.
Grumbling to himself, swearing for the thousandth time that he was going to move to Antarctica, he paused in the entrance to the dungeons to lick the still melting chocolate off his thumb.
A scream, loud and jagged and terror-filled enough to shatter windows all the way up to the seventh floor, sounded from the first floor. His professorial instincts overriding his common sense – although not his healthy sense of scepticism; this was a school full of high-strung hormonal miscreants laughingly called students after all – Severus moved towards the Grand Staircase to make his way upwards. At the very least, he might be required to work crowd control. As he climbed the stairs, he vaguely caught sight of Potter standing just inside the castle’s front doors, but dismissed the brat as being unimportant right then.
As it turned out, it was the worst thing he could have done.
Harry Potter joined the group of students who were gathering around the screaming Second Year girl on the first floor. He could see McGonagall pushing her way through the crowd from the opposite side.
“Move aside,” she ordered, briskly, arriving at the girl’s side. The girl, a strawberry-blonde Ravenclaw, had wound down to hiccupping sobs. “Now then Miss Jenkins,” McGonagall said, “what seems to be the problem?”
The girl pointed a trembling finger down a side corridor that branched off from the main one they were in. Some yards down, all but hidden at the edge of the shadows, was a crumpled heap of . . . something. Little lumps were scattered around it. “The Easter Bunny,” Miss Jenkins whispered, her breath hitching in another sob. “Somebody’s murdered the Easter Bunny!”
A shocked hush descended over the group, before a susurrus of whispers sprang up.
“What—?” McGonagall began, then she lifted her chin and determinedly marched towards the heap. Whatever plan she may have had dissolved as she drew near, as her steps faltered, and she finally came to a halt three feet away from it. Every person in the crowd heard her gulp, then she was hastily backing away.
“Summon the Headmaster,” she said, shakily, as she reached them again. Her face had gone chalk white, and her lips trembled. “We must contact the Aurors. Nobody else must go down that corridor. If anybody has seen anything that may help, please stay behind. Everybody else, return to your dormitories at once.” A quick flick of her wand, and three silvery cats were darting off in separate directions, although one of them did not go far.
Snape was already pushing his way through the students as McGonagall’s patronus circled his feet. Harry frowned. Snape had come down this way not five minutes before – how had he not stumbled over this himself? And just what had the man got on his hand?
“Oh, Severus,” McGonagall sighed as Snape reached her side. “It’s . . . terrible!”
Snape took a quick look down the corridor, but didn’t actually enter it. He scowled as he turned back to the gawking crowd, none of whom had obeyed McGonagall’s order to leave.
“Prefects!” he barked, and several people jumped. “Escort your Houses back to your dormitories immediately! Those who may have seen something, go and wait in the Great Hall.” Instantly, students began scurrying to obey him.
In the confusion, Harry slipped into the side corridor to have a closer look at the crumpled heap. It appeared to be an extremely large rabbit, at least four times larger than even the giant breeds he’d seen in a pet shop once. It was stretched out on its side, completely limp. Its throat had been tore open, so that its head was thrown back and barely attached. The lumps scattered around it were egg-shaped, and came in various sizes and colours and patterns.
The strangest thing, though, was that its fur appeared to be made of chocolate.
Puzzled, Harry slipped away to join the students heading for the Great Hall. He’d thought the Easter Bunny was just a myth that Muggles told their children at Easter, sort of like Santa Claus.
Then again, he’d always thought Merlin was just a strange old cartoon character in a children’s film that had always caused the Dursleys to go into hysterics over whenever it came on TV.
The Great Hall was abuzz with conversations, most of it confused and panicked. It only grew worse as time passed, and nobody came to tell them what was happening.
Eventually, Dumbledore and McGonagall appeared in the doorway, a phalanx of scarlet-robed Aurors behind them. Dumbledore looked more shaken than Harry had ever seen him.
“Students,” Dumbledore said, and there was instant silence. “A most terrible crime has taken place here this afternoon—”
“Is it true?” a boy, who appeared to be a First Year as he was so short, shrilled anxiously from his place near Harry. “Has someone really killed the Easter Bunny?”
“I—” Dumbledore paused and looked around the room. Shock and horror decorated many of the faces looking back at him. He sighed, feeling more weary than he’d ever felt before, even after he’d fought Grindelwald. “Yes,” he admitted, sadly. “The Easter Bunny is dead. You are all here because you believe you’ve seen something that may help to catch the culprit and bring them to justice.”
The Hall was filling up with whispers again, along with a few tears. Most of the ones Harry could hear went something along the lines of “What will happen to our Easters now?” The Aurors began moving between the students, questioning as they went. Harry was one of the last they got to.
“Ah, Mr Potter,” said one of them, a short dumpy man who looked as though most of his ancestors had been dwarves and goblins. “I am Auror Rockstrain. You saw something that could help bring the perpetrator to justice?”
Harry fidgeted, nervously. “I may have done,” he agreed. “I was just coming in from Quidditch practice.”
“You’re the Gryffindor Seeker, aren’t you?” asked another Auror, female this time. She was tall, with long brown hair that had shades of gold twisted into it. She was also as skinny as the proverbial rake, and looked as though even a minor puff of wind could blow her over. “Youngest Seeker in . . . how long?”
“A century,” Harry told her.
“No doubt the professional teams will be clamouring for you,” she said, winking at him.
“I have no idea what I want to do once I finish school,” he admitted. Then he grinned at her. “Although I was thinking of becoming an Auror . . .”
“Good choice!” the female Auror – who still hadn’t mentioned her name – said, approvingly. “Go on, then – pretend you’re a newly qualified Auror giving a report.”
Almost unconsciously, Harry found himself sitting as straight as he could. For an instant, he reminded himself of Percy Weasley. “We had Quidditch practice straight after lunch,” he said. “We were working on a new play, and so we missed dinner. I’d just come back in through the front doors when I noticed someone standing just in the entrance to the dungeons. They had something dark on their hand and they were licking it off.”
“Good, that’s good,” said the female Auror, as Auror Rockstrain scribbled manically in a notebook. “Did you happen to see this person clearly? Get a sense of how tall they were, their hair colour, what House they were, etc.?”
“Well—” Harry chewed on his lower lip. “Actually, I saw precisely who it was.”
“Well, don’t keep us in suspense!” the Auror exclaimed. The loudness of her voice brought Dumbledore and McGonagall over. “Who was it?”
Harry looked at the Headmaster. “Snape,” he said quietly, then cleared his throat and forced himself to speak more normally. “It was Professor Snape I saw.”
“This is ridiculous!” Snape could be heard shouting as the crowd of Aurors dragged him out of the castle thirty minutes later. “What idiotic Gryffindor did this? It had to be one of them! No-one else would dare!”
Dumbledore came to stand behind Harry on the front steps. He looked old and worn. For the first time, Harry had no trouble believing the elderly wizard was approaching his second century.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he said. “I had no choice . . .”
“No, I know you didn’t, my boy,” Dumbledore reassured him, placing a hand on his shoulder and squeezing. “I have protected Severus for years, even from himself on occasion, but if he has truly done this terrible thing, then I can shelter him no longer.”
“What will happen now?” Harry asked.
Dumbledore sighed, as three Aurors cast stunners at Snape, and he collapsed in their arms, an instant before the entire group portkeyed away. “A new Easter Bunny will be chosen,” he said, turning to enter the castle again. Harry reluctantly followed him. “Thankfully, we are just past Easter for this year. The new one will have time to prepare for their role.”
Puzzled, Harry wondered just what an Easter Bunny’s role was. Ah well, he could always ask Hermione!
Five years later
“Blech, this food is almost as bad as Hogwarts’ food has become,” Harry complained to Ron as they sat in the canteen at the Ministry.
“Nothing could be as bad as Hogwarts’ food!” Ron protested, vehemently. He looked glumly down at his plate of unidentifiable mush. “Although this does come a close second . . .”
There was a sudden flurry of noise and activity from the canteen doorway, and both boys looked up. Several people had burst through the doors, waving papers over their heads.
“What on earth—” Harry started, but Hermione was already bulling her way through the crowd towards them. Her hair was all but standing on end, she looked so frantic.
“Have you seen today’s paper?” she asked, breathlessly, slapping the newspaper onto the table between them. Even as Ron and Harry shook their heads and reached for it, Hermione was blurting out the news, as if unable to keep it in for one second longer. “Snape’s innocent!”
“He’s what?!” Harry’s jaw dropped. “No, no, that’s impossible!” he protested. “He was guilty, I saw him, he was there!”
Hermione stabbed her finger down onto the front page of the folded paper, where they could see the headline that took up all the space: Severus Snape Turns Out To Be Innocent! it read, and in smaller print – although not by much – underneath, it continued, Murderer Of The Easter Bunny Is Still Out There!!
Stunned, Harry collapsed back in his chair.
“Bu—bu—bu—” Ron stammered, apparently unable to finish word, let alone a sentence.
“A new witness came forward,” Hermione told them in a hushed voice. “One that confirmed, without a doubt, that it couldn’t have been Snape.”
Harry sat up again. “They used Veritaserum?” he asked. “And why didn’t this person come forward before now if they had such conclusive proof?”
“They couldn’t. They were under an Oath of Silence,” Hermione said, flipping the paper over to find the relevant section of the article. “And they didn’t take Veritaserum – couldn’t, for some reason; this paper doesn’t say why – but they swore an Unbreakable Oath, instead.”
Defeated, Harry slumped again. If this mysterious person had taken Veritaserum, there had been a chance that they’d been wrong, or Imperius’d or something. Snape had been given Veritaserum at his trial, but somehow, he’d manage to wriggle his way around it and protest his innocence. Everybody knew he’d learnt the trick of it in his Death Eater past. But an Unbreakable Oath . . . The new witness wouldn’t have done that if they weren’t sure, as it would have killed them instantly if Snape had been the killer.
“I have to go see Dumbledore,” he murmured, getting to his feet. He made his way to the Ministry’s Apparation hub, leaving his friends behind him, anxiously wringing their hands.
Dumbledore didn’t look that surprised to see him when Harry arrived in his office. He had two house-elves with him. Nodding pleasantly at them, Harry was surprised when both elves shot him a look of deepest loathing, and suddenly vanished with loud pops.
“Was it something I said?” he joked to Dumbledore.
The Headmaster merely sighed. After the debacle of Snape’s arrest, he had lost much of his jollity. In fact, he had been preparing for his retirement for the last three years. Most people had assumed Dumbledore would keep going as Headmaster until he died, if he didn’t actually live forever, which it had seemed he very well might.
“So . . .” Harry started, uncomfortably. “I saw the Daily Prophet this morning.”
“I suspect most people did,” replied Dumbledore. He studied Harry carefully. “You want to know who the witness was, and how they managed to successfully prove Prof— Severus innocent.”
“Well . . . yeah,” admitted Harry. “It has to be a setup, Professor! I saw Snape that night. I really did!”
“Oh, yes, there’s no doubt about that,” Dumbledore said, nodding.
Harry gaped at him. “Then how is Snape innocent?!” he spluttered.
“Because, my boy, what you saw was not what you thought it was.” Dumbledore folded his hands together on the desk and stared intently at Harry. “It is . . . unfortunate that nobody stopped to question your account, or indeed, Severus, more closely.”
“But they used Veritaserum!” Harry protested. “He managed to get around that!”
The Headmaster shook his head, slowly. “No, Harry, he didn’t. The Veritaserum worked exactly as it should. It was those of us who were listening who twisted things to suit our own agendas.” He suddenly looked unbearably sad. “In our zeal to save our children’s Easter, we have irrevocably ruined it.”
“How? I still don’t understand the importance of the Easter Bunny,” Harry said. He had asked Hermione, but she hadn’t been able to find out, either. Apparently it was one of those things that were so well known within the Wizarding World that it hadn’t been written down anywhere. It was just something that children brought up in the Wizarding World automatically, instinctively knew.
Dumbledore looked puzzled for a moment, then one of the portraits high on the wall snorted derisively. “He’s Muggle-raised, Dumbledore,” it said, looking down its nose at Harry – although it was so high up, there was really no other way of looking down at him.
“He’s . . . oh!” Dumbledore shook his head again. “I’m sorry, Harry, I’d forgotten. Forgive me.” He waved a hand, gesturing for Harry to take a seat. “In the Muggle world, I believe you can buy chocolate eggs at Easter from the shops. In the Wizarding World, though, the Easter Bunny brings the chocolate eggs, and delivers them to Wizarding families in much the same way that Father Christmas operates. It’s mostly children who receive them, but sometimes adults get smaller eggs, too, if they are particular favourites of the Easter Bunny, for whatever reason.”
“I . . . see,” Harry said, slowly. “So . . . for five years . . . ?”
“Nobody has received any eggs at Easter at all.” Dumbledore looked stricken again. “I had assumed that a new Easter Bunny would be chosen and trained fairly quickly after the – ahem – death of the previous one, but something obviously went wrong with the system, and one wasn’t chosen.”
Harry felt his Auror instincts, even as new as they were, kick in. “So why kill the bunny in the first place?” he asked.
“It has long been rumoured that if you kill an Easter Bunny, you take its place. Then, of course, you have access to all the eggs it usually delivers.” Dumbledore shrugged. “Nobody knows how a new Easter Bunny is chosen. Nobody even knows why. A new one just appears every five or ten years.”
Is he really trying to tell me that somebody would be willing to kill for access to a large amount of chocolate?! Harry wondered. Then he thought of his cousin, Dudley, and realised that yes, someone would be willing to kill for large amounts of chocolate.
At that moment, one of the instruments on Dumbledore’s desk let off a soft ping. He looked at it, and his expression seemed to fall for a brief moment. “It appears that Severus has arrived to collect his belongings,” he said.
“Um, well, I guess I’d better go apologise to him,” Harry said, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck nervously. He was not looking forward to this.
“Oh, sir, Issty is so glad to be seeing you!” the house-elf bawled, flinging itself against Severus’ legs so hard that he almost went tumbling over.
Pin-wheeling his arms to regain his balance, Severus gently patted the elf’s head. “Thank you, Issty,” he said. “I know what you did for me.”
“Was no trouble, sir, really!” the elf burbled, looking up at Severus with big, water-drenched eyes. “Issty was happy to help! Issty only wishes that wizards had asked Issty before.”
“Hmm. Well, you can’t blame them for not realising why they were getting sub-standard food,” Severus said, and bent down to lever the elf off of him. “Most wizards aren’t that bright.”
“Wizards got what they deserved!” Issty agreed, nodding vigorously. Abruptly, it grinned so fiercely that it looked vaguely demonic. Severus was glad that particular look was not aimed at him! “Oh, look,” the elf said in a bright, sing-song tone that sent shivers down Severus’ spine. “That wizard is here!”
That wizard could only mean one – Potter. The house-elves at Hogwarts had not been inclined to be kind to him after what he’d done – and apparently they’d spread the tale far and wide through the house-elf network. It was debatable, however, whether Potter had come into close enough contact with a house-elf to discern this, and Severus didn’t really feel up to explaining to Dumbledore why he was suddenly missing a Saviour.
“That will be all, Issty,” he said, giving a meaningful glance down at the elf. The elf looked up at him and pouted, before giving a last glare somewhere behind Severus, and vanishing with a threatening pop. Quite how a sound could be threatening, Severus didn’t know, but this one was.
He began sorting all of the books that the house-elves had rescued for him. Thankfully, his home at Spinners End had escaped the Aurors’ notice as it was in the Muggle world. His belongings at Hogwarts would have been seized and either sold or destroyed, but the wonderful house-elves had spirited everything away, and then refused to tell the Headmaster where they’d put it all.
He could hear Potter shuffling from foot to foot behind him, but he stubbornly ignored the brat. He was in no rush to speak to Potter, and if Potter forced the issue, he was fairly sure Potter would regret it immediately.
“Um, Professor Snape?” he finally ventured, hesitantly.
Severus snorted. “I am no longer a professor, Potter,” he said, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on what he was doing. “I’m just plain old Mr Snape now.”
“Uh, right,” said Potter. “Look, I – I’m sorry for what happened, really I am, but it did look like—”
Severus slammed a heavy tome about the history of Goblin Rebellions down onto the top of the nearest pile and Potter abruptly stopped talking. “Are you telling me that it was my own fault that I was falsely accused and arrested?” he demanded. He was so angry that it came out as more of a hiss than anything else.
“No, no, of course not!” Potter hastily back-pedalled. “I just – I mean – um.”
“Saint Potter,” said Severus, bitterly. “Never wrong . . . and if he is, well, it’s the other person’s fault.” He swung round to face Potter, who was beginning to look rather alarmed. “Sorry, Potter, does not bring back the FIVE YEARS of my life that I spent in Azkaban!”
“I – I – I,” stammered Potter, completely unable to get another word out in the face of Severus’ rage.
“And what about all the children who haven’t had a proper Easter?” Severus continued. “Are you going to go and apologise personally to all of them?”
Potter frowned, suddenly. “I still think this whole Easter Bunny thing is a load of crock,” he said.
This was entirely the wrong thing for him to say, as in the next instance, he was surrounded by a hoard of hissing and growling house-elves. His eyes widened, as he looked around at them all, then up at Severus for help.
Severus folded his arms over his chest. “Do you know who the witness was that proved my innocence, Potter?” he asked, casually, pretending to examine the fingernails on one hand.
“Um, no,” said Potter, nervously. If it hadn’t been for the fact that you couldn’t Apparate into or out of Hogwarts, Severus was sure Potter would have done by now.
“It was Issty,” Severus informed him, and Issty snarled loudly behind Potter. “Issty was the house-elf who’d served me in the kitchens that night.”
“Then why didn’t Issty speak up sooner?” Potter asked.
“Because Issty – indeed, all the house-elves – were under an Oath of Silence. They could not tell what they knew unless somebody directly asked them . . . and nobody did.” Severus shook his head. “Nobody even thought to ask why the house-elves were suddenly serving substandard food.”
Potter’s mouth fell open.
“Mmm,” Severus hummed. “I bet you never even noticed that none of the house-elves did anything for you after that night, did you, Potter?”
“Er—” Potter glanced nervously down at the circle of house-elves. Several of them had produced small knives from somewhere. Candlelight flickered off the edges, which looked very sharp indeed.
“Do you know how a new Easter Bunny is chosen, Potter?” Severus asked, abruptly.
Potter looked confused at the sudden change of conversation. “Dumbledore said nobody knows,” he replied.
“An Easter Bunny is not a person, it is a construct,” Severus told him.
“I thought it was a rabbit,” Potter said, frowning in puzzlement. “I’m sure that was a dead rabbit on the floor that night.”
Severus rolled his eyes.
“The Easter Bunny is a construct,” he repeated. “Every five years, a choice is given as to whether the current Bunny remains for another term, or gives it up to the next chosen Bunny. The house-elves obviously know who each Bunny is, and they offer all the help they are able to – which is a considerable amount,” he added, inclining his head to the house-elves. They all nodded briefly back at him, before returning their attention to Potter. “They are also required to swear an Oath of Silence at the beginning of the Bunny’s term. At the five year mark, if the current Bunny chooses to remain as the Bunny, then there is the option to dispel that Oath. If a choice is unable to be made, for whatever reason, then the current Bunny remains in place, and the Oath is naturally dispelled.”
Potter was gaping at him. “How do you know all that?!” he exclaimed. “Even Dumbledore doesn’t know that!”
Severus stepped closer to Potter, leaned forward, and smirked at him. “How do I know all of that, Potter?” he repeated. “Because I am the current Easter Bunny!”
The End.