Harry watched Ginny walk away, and all the fears and panic that had been lurking in the shadows of his mind since the topic of restarting the DA had come up made themselves palpable and evident.

Starting the DA again felt like a terrible idea. He felt certain that if they did start the group again, someone would inevitably end up getting hurt, and it would be all his fault. He didn’t know how he’d live with himself if-when- that happened.

Harry hunched over the table, clutched his hair in his hands, and struggled to control his breathing.

This whole situation felt like something out of one his nightmares; his friends were trusting him to teach them how to defend themselves. Not only were they trusting him to teach them, they were deliberately seeking him out as the teacher. The thought that anyone would trust him when there were clearly other options to learn from, to teach something so vital, so essential, that may one day save their lives was truly terrifying.

And yet, he loved it.

Some of his only good memories of the past year were of teaching the D.A.

Helping Neville perfect the shielding charm.

Guiding Luna through casting her first patronus.

Seeing Colin successfully disarm his partner for the first time.

Feeling the blast as Susan’s blasting curse utterly obliterated a target.

Learning how to cast Ginny’s famous Bat Bogey Hex.

But these memories were now all tainted by the realization that he had been careless. The number of times someone could have gotten needlessly injured- by a stray or miscast curse, by over-doing it and getting exhausted, by being caught by Umbridge. The list went on, and each possibility made Harry grip his hair tighter.

As Harry’s panic reached a fever pitch, a thought occurred to him that made him loosen his grip on his hair, and slow the jiggling of his leg that he’d only just noticed: he only had to get through one lesson without hurting someone.

There was obviously no way that anyone in their right mind would let him keep leading the lessons, and the professors were all rational people.

So, after he taught the first lesson, whoever supervised it would express their concern that the whole situation was unsafe and ill thought out. Then, if the professor wanted his help, he could assist with setting up the teacher lead DA.

He’d do his absolute best work when he wrote the one lesson he’d give; it was the last he’d ever write, after all. And, with the war building as it was, every second of preparation counted. They couldn’t afford for Harry to deliberately throw a lesson.

Not that he needed to throw a lesson to get the DA cancelled, but his best was just never going to have the same experience and heft that a professor would have.

And there was always the chance that he was getting worked up over nothing at all- McGonagall hadn’t approved their plan yet, and there was every chance that she wouldn’t.

With all of this in mind, Harry finally straightened up from his hunched over position and returned to his work.

Harry, Ginny, and Neville were sitting in the Great Hall; Harry was pushing the food around on his plate in an unconscious attempt to make it appear as though he had eaten more than he really had; years of dodging Hermione’s mothering had given him lots of practice.

Thinking about Hermione and her mothering reminded him of all the things that he didn’t want to think about: her and Ron abandoning him, his summer and cause for most of Hermione’s mothering, and his end of year misadventures.

Harry sighed, that wasn’t completely fair of him. Ron and Hermione had stood by him for years, and he was reasonably certain that if he went to them and told them he was struggling that they would be there to support him. It was just that he was terrible at asking for help.

Every time he tried, he choked on the words and couldn’t manage to do it.

He drew himself out of this reverie and checked on Ginny and Neville’s progress through dinner. They were nearly done, so Harry gratefully put down his fork and said, “Have you guys thought about what we’re going to say to McGonagall?”

Ginny swallowed the bite she’d been chewing. “I haven’t thought it through word for word- but I do have a general idea of what I want to say. I figured you wouldn’t be down for talking too much since you’re so reluctant about the whole thing, so I figured I’d just say that we want to restart the Defense tutoring club from last year. This time with a professor’s supervision, but still led by you.”

She loaded up a fork with the remains of her dinner, “If there was something either of you wanted to say to her, then go for it,” she concluded and deposited her fork full of food in her mouth.

Neville shrugged, “That just about covers it for me.”

Harry nodded, and turned to check on Professor McGonagall’s progress through dinner. As he tried to get a good look at her plate, she pushed it away and stood up.

Harry nudged Ginny and said, “You guys almost ready to go? It looks like McGonagall’s done eating.”

Ginny and Neville finished the bite they were on, put their utensils down, and they all stood up from their seats.

Since they left so soon after McGonagall did, they took their time getting to her office so that if they beat her there, they wouldn’t have to wait for too long.

They got to her office door, and Ginny knocked loudly. They heard a muffled “Come in!” through the door, and Harry pushed it open, allowing Neville and Ginny to precede him through the door.

The first thing Harry saw when he stepped into Professor McGonagall’s office was her proud figure seated with rigidly proper posture behind her simple, yet elegant, desk. He allowed his gaze to wander for a second, taking in the rest of the room for the first time since before the summer.

There was a new picture of the Professor with a woman Harry didn’t recognize on her mantle, but beyond that nothing seemed to have changed over the summer.

Tartan was still the overall theme of the room, the walls were still painted a cozy brown, and the rug was still fluffy. Harry smiled, he loved being in a place so warm and welcoming- so unlike all the other places he’s lived, excepting the Burrow.

As he was closing the door behind him, Ginny started talking, “Good evening, Professor Mcgonagall. Harry, Neville, and I are here to ask you about the proper procedure for starting a club…”

“Take a seat, the three of you.” McGonagall said when they remained standing. There were only two chairs, and Harry gestured for his friends to take the other seats and conjured a chair identical to the other two, but slightly behind them and closer to the door for himself.

“That was well done, Mr. Potter. Go on then, take your seats.”

Harry felt himself blush at the compliment and frantically willed it to go away, telling himself he was being ridiculous. It was nice to know that all the studying he had done over the summer was showing, though.

Ginny and Neville stopped studying the conjured chair that Harry was sitting in, and sat down in the original ones.

“Now, from what I understand, the club you were running last year was illegitimate with no adult supervision, am I correct?” McGonagall stated, more than asked.

“That was the state of the club last year, yes,” Ginny said, “But if we were to have permission to continue with our club- that was more of a study group- then Harry has insisted that we get a professor to supervise our meetings. Especially since extra lessons in defense are more important this year than they’ve ever been before, since Voldemort is out in the open now.”

“I do see where you’re coming from regarding the need for some kind of extra tutoring specifically in self-defense, but how exactly do you envision the club operating? I know I certainly don’t have time to plan and teach an additional lesson a week, and I doubt that any of the other professors have the time either,” McGonagall said.

A small frown crossed her face, and she corrected, “The other professors that are actually capable of teaching… defense.”

Ginny opened her mouth to answer, but Harry cut in before she could, “I would plan and teach the first lesson, at least, under your complete supervision. But, in the extremely probable scenario that you decide that my lesson is subpar, we had hoped that you and the rest of the professors could take turns giving lessons. If even half of the twenty or so professors take a turn, that’s only a lesson every ten weeks.”

Here, Harry began to feel insecure, “But, if that’s still too much, we can make do without a club. Or- maybe the seventh years…?”

Ginny looked upset, but Neville looked nearly outraged. But before either of them could begin to contradict what Harry had said, McGonagall beat them to it.

“I’ve already agreed that a defense study group is necessary, that isn’t the issue currently under contention. The issue is how to implement the group effectively and safely.”

“Well,” Neville said, “The D.A. was very effective, even if it wasn’t the safest- though I think it was as safe as it could have been considering the restrictions we were under. And if you have the time to attend a couple hour meeting once a week, then the problem is solved.”

“That’s right, Harry’s agreed to teach the lessons. We just need an adult to supervise and, of course, permission to start the club.” Ginny put in.

Harry watched McGonagall mull the proposition over. This was the moment of truth, if she said no, then the D.A. would die a quiet death. Hopefully if she did turn them down, she’d suggest an alternative plan.

He shied away from the thought of what would happen if there was nothing, no club or group to help the students prepare for an increasingly inevitable encounter with a Death Eater.

McGonagall stared off into the distance for a few more moments, clearly deep in thought, before taking in a breath.

“I do not believe that the extra year of schooling would give a seventh-year student a sufficient advantage to compete with the experience you gained last year. And I do believe that you must have done a good job; I saw that most everyone who was in your club did significantly better than those who were not. That being said, I am definitely not comfortable letting you all be unsupervised, especially when learning defense. So, I think to lighten the burden of supervising, I’ll see who will agree to supervise and we’ll take turns throughout the semester.”

Harry heaved a sigh of relief when she said that their plan was good, glad that when he was declared unfit to lead the group, it was unlikely that the D.A. would just die. Because even though she didn’t mention it, it was clearly inevitable. And given how hard Neville and Ginny had been willing to push both him and McGonagall to start the group, he’d be willing to bet that they’d help to find a replacement.

“So, how do we arrange a meeting time and location?” Ginny asked.

“Well, I’m not wholly comfortable with you meeting in such an unresearched and unregulated room as I heard you were meeting in last year, so I was thinking that the Great Hall would be a better choice. Since I am free just after dinner most days and I am supervising the first meeting, we’ll have it- Tuesday should work for at least this first one. I can tell Albus to announce the meeting at dinner, but if you want to advertise for the meeting beyond that, you’ll have to arrange for it yourselves.”

“That works for us, professor,” Harry said, “is that all we need to start the club?”

“We haven’t entirely finalized all the details of the club, so it’s all for now. After the first meeting, I’ll ask you to stay behind so we can fill out some paperwork and make final decisions on meeting times. So, that’s all for now,” McGonagall said, picking up a stack of papers from her desk.

Ginny said, “Thank you for your time, Professor,” and the three of them filed out of her office.

Before he closed the door, Harry ducked back in to banish the chair he had conjured. He couldn’t believe he had almost forgotten to clean up his mess.

In the hallway just outside McGonagall’s office, Ginny had already stopped Neville and was bouncing on the balls of her feet. Harry had to smile at her clear excitement to discuss their meeting.

She said, “I knew McGonagall would approve the club! It really only makes sense.”

This was one thing that Harry agreed with Ginny wholeheartedly on, so he agreed readily with a, “Yeah, I’m glad she approved it too. And so quickly too, I had just assumed it would take more time to get everything arranged than that.”

“She probably thinks it’s just as important as we do,” Neville said. “Now we just have to actually get everything ready for Tuesday. Which is literally two days from now.”

“Don’t exaggerate, we absolutely have three days to get everything together,” Ginny countered.

Neville began muttering under his breath and counting on his fingers, “Hey!” he exclaimed, “We totally only have two full days left. It’s Saturday night now so we have all of Sunday and Monday to get it together.”

“But it’s not that late now so we have plenty of time to get something done today and the meeting isn’t till after dinner on Tuesday, so we can get stuff done on Tuesday too. So that’s more like four days, not two,” Ginny said.

“Guys, can we just call it three days?” Harry said, unwilling to risk letting the spat grow into something larger

Ginny and Neville exchanged amused glances and shrugged in acquiescence.

Then Ginny said, “So anyways, we should split up things that need to get done. Since writing the lessons is a lot of work in itself, Neville and I can handle spreading the word. Though updating the galleon from last year would be useful too if you have the time later.”

Harry was relieved that they had settled that so easily.

“Yeah, I can do that. Thank you, guys, for being so helpful with all of this. You didn’t have to, and it means a lot that you have,” Harry said. He gave Ginny a quick hug and waved awkwardly at Neville. “I’ll see you guys later, but I still have work to do, and a lesson to plan.”

As he walked away, he heard Neville say, “Wait, when did I sign up to do all this?”

Then he heard Ginny laugh lightly and say, “You made the mistake of walking by when I needed backup to convince Harry, and now you’re stuck with us.”

Neville responded, “Who knew the library was so dangerous…” but then Harry was out of earshot despite slowing his pace slightly to catch the end of the conversation.

He shook his head and picked up his pace again. He still had so much to do, especially now that he had to make a lesson for next Tuesday, but he couldn’t help taking a little time to listen to his friends’ banter. It reminded him of what he was fighting for.

As he arrived at the library, a smile lingering on his face from watching his friends interact, he took a seat in his favorite alcove in the back.

It was perfect because it was tucked away behind two perpendicular bookcases that seemed to mark the boundary of the library at first glance but were actually the walls of the study nook. And its small size ensured that even if someone found him, they would be unlikely to stay for long.

Since he had found the alcove, his study efficiency had drastically increased thanks to fewer distractions- most people were already used to his fame, but there was the occasional person who just wanted to be near a celebrity and thought that the library was the perfect place to achieve that desire.

Setting his books down, he took a seat and put his head in his hands. Now, in near privacy, he could really let himself think about what he’d agreed to and begin to sort through the mess of feelings that had arisen.

Starting the D.A. again. That’s something he never thought would happen; between his own anxiety about- well, all of it, and the defense professor’s competence, there was really no reason for him to have dug up this particular can of worms until now.

Unfortunately, this meant that through all the hours of drudgery as he did mindless chores, desperately trying to distract himself, he never bothered to plan D.A. lessons.

In hindsight, he really should have used planning lessons as a distraction. Even if they were entirely hypothetical and he never planned to use them, it would still have been a very effective distraction technique.

Thankfully, he did sketch out some ideas to teach his close friends. While Hermione had him beat in anything book learning related and Ron could beat him at strategic thinking in his sleep, he had an advantage in this war that they didn’t- he could see into Voldemort’s mind.
This insight allowed him to become intimately familiar with Voldemort’s styles- both his overall strategy for the war, and his individual dueling style.

His fingers gripped his hair a little harder as he remembered how he had acquired this knowledge. At the beginning of the summer, he had been pulled into Voldemort’s mind nearly every night and been forced to watch Voldemort commit atrocities.

It took Harry several nights of watching and despair and helplessness before he realized that these dreams were not like the ones he had before. When he had dreamed of Nagini attacking Mr. Weasley, he had been the snake. When he had received the vision of Sirius, he had been Voldemort himself.

Now, however, he was a third person observer. He was free to move around, though the further he got from Voldemort, the more it felt like he was moving through a thick syrup. And he could never seem to leave the room Voldemort was in. Despite this, it was still infinitely better than witnessing the acts through Voldemort’s eyes.

It was much easier to recognize that the things he saw were not his fault when it did not feel as though he was the one doing them.

Most nights, Harry had been engaged in a struggle between his urge to hide behind any convenient piece of furniture and pretend that nothing out of the ordinary was happening and his need to watch the victims.

He could do nothing for them, he couldn’t misdirect spells, he couldn’t push the victims out of the way, and he could not take the curses for them- he had tried. So, he felt the least he could do was witness their last. To keep them from being utterly alone in their final moments, even though it was ridiculous to think they could sense him in anyway.

Despite knowing that he couldn’t actually do anything for the victims, he still ended up hovering near them as if to offer support nearly as often as he ended up hiding under a table.

Then one night, he was pulled to Voldemort on a night where no non-Death Eaters were present. Harry had never been pulled to Voldemort for a meeting like this, and he couldn’t help but hope that he would finally be able to witness something useful that he could pass on to the Order, rather than the usual rampages.

As he peered around, taking in the dimly lit but still obviously opulent dining hall the meeting was taking place in, he was dimly aware of the Death Eaters filing in individually and the distant sound of apparition.

Despite there being no victims and no other violent conflict, the air in the room was nearly as tense as though there had been an abundance of both. The reason for the tension was also the reason Harry was present in the room: Voldemort was seated in a throne-like chair at the head of the table.

Looking over at him, Harry was shocked to realize that Voldemort was looking down at a stack of papers. For the first time since he realized he could move around in these visions, Harry made a beeline straight for Voldemort.

It was a bit difficult to see what the papers said from over Voldemort’s shoulder, and though he was reluctant to bring his insubstantial form any nearer to Voldemort than absolutely necessary, he inched forward just a little closer, cursing his weak eyes as he went.

As soon as he came into contact with Voldemort, it was like he was a bug being sucked into the vacuum of Voldemort’s mind. His frantic efforts to free himself only lead to him being drawn further into Voldemort’s mind. Abandoning his struggles, Harry was startled to realize that he was in a hallway lined with doors that stretched on for so long it faded into the distance.

This must be Voldemort’s mind, Harry had realized. For a brief moment he debated the intelligence of randomly picking a door and opening it, before quickly deciding that he really had little to lose.

The door swung open easily at his touch, and Harry fell into a series of memories.

When he had woken up in his bed the next morning, he had immediately vomited onto the floor beside his bed. The memories he had been pulled into had all been from the height of Voldemort’s initial rise to power and were in many ways worse than the visions he had been having all summer.

He rarely recognized the people Voldemort was targeting these days because many of them were simply muggles who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Last night he had seen two men who were incredibly like Fred and George- meaning they could only be Fabian and Gideon, Mrs. Weasley’s brothers.

Harry had allowed himself a moment to recover before getting to his feet to clean up his vomit.

The next several times that Harry had been pulled to Voldemort, he had avoided going anywhere near Voldemort. Until a night where the violence was so grotesque that even exploring Voldemort’s mind had to be better than staying.

That time, the door Harry opened had contained memories of Tom’s time in the orphanage. The time after that, Harry was appalled by the memories of Tom’s first murders. As Harry continued to explore Voldemort’s mind, he began to learn which doors to avoid.

He also began to learn how Voldemort fought. And a lot of other things too. Like spells that had gone out of use decades ago, and upon returning Hogwarts, Harry had realized that experiencing silent spellcasting once had enabled Harry to do so easily.

Harry also suspected that apparition would come much easier to him than it would to his classmates thanks to this experience.

He hoped he would be able to convey all this knowledge, of spells and strategies both, to his friends and classmates. Because if he managed to, it would make all the horrors and stains on his soul worth it.

Harry took a deep breath and relaxed his posture, sitting up in his seat properly for the first time since he sat down.

Then again, he could only teach things to people who were present for lessons. His reputation was better now than it had been this year, thanks to the Daily Prophet printing stories on his Chosen One status, but it was hard to believe that people would be so willing to forget what had been said throughout the entire previous year.

Though with Dumbledore’s endorsement, it may not matter what Harry’s reputation was, his word alone was probably still enough to draw many students.

He realized that he had yet to even pull out any supplies necessary for writing a lesson plan or doing any of his school work, so he reached into his bag and pulled out parchment and quill and ink.

Harry cleared his mind as best as he could of all his distractions and worries and focused on the task at hand: helping his classmates survive the coming war.

Severus spent most of the day buried in the potions section of the library. He told himself he was doing research even as he reread his favorite potions text that he had practically memorized by this point.

He went to lunch and dinner at the fringe time right when the food was served to avoid the bulk of the crowds of students. After that terribly awkward interaction with Potter and the youngest Weasley, he had no desire to repeat the experience until he absolutely had to.

He didn’t even know what he’d done wrong! Sure, he hadn’t been a bubbly Gryffindor, but then neither was Potter! He’d been reasonably polite, and Potter had still run off and Weasley had still yelled at him for no good reason.

Did he have to grovel to Potter to be considered polite? If he did, he may as well go tell Albus that this whole disaster was a lost cause.

He sighed to himself. Even if he did bother to tell that to Dumbledore, he knew him well enough to know that it would make no difference at all.

Severus could only hope that he’d caught Potter and Weasley at a bad time, because otherwise he’d be trapped in this hellish body for far longer than he’d ever want to. He kept tripping over things and overbalancing when he reached for things that would, in his normal body, be easily within reach, but in this younger body were just too far to grasp.

Objectively, he knew that teenage boys were clumsy due to rapid body changes, but he couldn’t help but feel ridiculous every time he misjudged a distance. He was not really a teenager, so he ought to be able handle being a teenager better now.

He was discovering, to his horror, that this was not the case.

Looking at the time, Severus reluctantly concluded that it was probably time to begin the trudge back to Gryffindor tower for the first time since Minerva had introduced him to the Gryffindors.

In hindsight, going back to the tower for the first time just before curfew when the common room would be at its most packed was, perhaps, not the best idea. If he had properly thought this through, he would have made sure to make an appearance in the tower at one of the emptier times of the day.

It was too late for that now, unless he wanted to sleep in some abandoned classroom to avoid the issue entirely. As appealing as that idea was sounding, Minerva was probably expecting him to do so and had probably planned a bed check for the night just in case.

He arrived at the portrait of the Fat Lady far too soon for comfort and muttered the password under his breath. Steeling himself for the worst, he stiffened his shoulders and walked through to the common room.

At first it seemed as though he was going to get away without being accosted by nosy Gryffindors, but then a student he vaguely remembered being sorted just this year pointed at him and loudly asked, during one of the random noise breaks, an equally small and unfamiliar student, “Who’s that?”

Severus froze as dozens of pairs of eyes turned to look at him. This was precisely what he did not want.

After a brief moment of shocked silence, a cacophony of questions arose from the crowd. There were so many that even if he were inclined to answer them, he would have been unable to isolate one question from the multitude being asked.

The chatter continued to swell as the Gryffindors abandoned their direct questioning of him and turned to their neighbors to discuss him. A quick glance to the left told him that there were Gryffindors coming down from their rooms to investigate the commotion and blocking his escape to his dorm in the process.

He took a step backwards, reconsidering the wisdom of sleeping in an abandoned classroom. Before he could get much further though, there was a loud cry of, “SHUT IT!”

The room quieted down significantly, though not completely, and he finally managed to identify the shouter as the youngest Weasley just before Potter started talking.

“What are you guys doing?” Potter demanded, “He’s a new student, not a zoo animal. Go back to whatever it was you were doing and get to know him like normal people.”

Remarkably, the Gryffindors listened to Potter and began to disperse. Few of them actually left the common room, but most of them returned to their seats and gave him some personal space. It dawned on him that Potter had just done something nice for him. He continued to stand there for another moment and considered his options.

He could take advantage of the dispersing crowd to go hide in his bed. This was the vastly more appealing option. Or, he could take advantage of Potter’s current seemingly positive disposition towards him to go make an overture of friendship.

Or at least talk to him again. Since Severus had absolutely no intention of groveling or whatever would count as a true overture in Potter’s book.

Sighing to himself, Severus knew what he had to do. He slipped between chairs and tables scattered throughout the common room to get to the corner where Potter was seated. It appeared the youngest Weasley and anyone else he had been with had cleared off.

Looking at the large pile of books next to Potter, he had to wonder if Weasley had simply been near Potter by coincidence, because even now, Potter was already returning to whatever he was doing with the books.

This struck Severus as odd. Shouldn’t Potter be sitting tall and proud in his chair, waiting for Severus to thank him for being so magnanimous? He didn’t seem to expect anything of the sort, instead he seemed to be fully absorbed in the book he was reading and the occasional notes he was jotting down.

Traversing the final feet to bring him into Potter’s view, Severus said, “Thank you. For calling off the hounds.” He grimaced slightly at that, he probably shouldn’t have insulted all of Potter’s housemates in one go like that, but it was habit by this point.

At the sound of his voice, Potter startled ever so slightly. It seemed he really, truly had not expected Severus to come over, then.

“Oh, uh, you’re welcome Alfonse, you looked a bit like a deer caught in the headlights and, well, I do have some idea how that feels, which isn’t great, so…” He trailed off, looking slightly uncomfortable.

Severus wasn’t quite sure what to make of this, Potter did seem to be sincerely trying to ease his experiences, but this conflicted with what he’d believed for the past several years and even with what he’d seen this morning.

It seemed he’d let what Potter said go without a response for too long, because then Potter continued, “Y’know they were probably only so bad because you’re too novel and haven’t been around much today, from what I heard, maybe… if you don’t have anything else to do, you could hang around in the common room for a bit, just so they can get used to you.”

His first instinct was to vehemently decline this suggestion and continue on with his original plan to go and hide in his bed. He stopped himself from saying the words he could already feel his mouth forming, however, and reluctantly admitted to himself that Potter was right.

Severus shuffled his feet and gave the common room a glance, looking for an acceptable open seat. He was not in luck, however, because his appearance seemed to have caused the room to fill to capacity with curious onlookers.

He concluded that as solid as the advice Potter had given him was, it was not to be. He was hardly going to sit on the floor somewhere, after all.

“I…appreciate the advice,” Severus finally said, “But it’s pretty packed here right now.”

He shifted his grip on the bag he was carrying and began to turn away, towards the stairs that lead to his dorm.

“There’s a seat right here,” Potter said, before Severus could finish turning away.

He turned back to face Potter, startled. He had seen the empty seat across from Potter, but he’d assumed that that was reserved for one of his little friends and was definitely not open to the random new student Potter thought he was.

“Oh, I thought that was your friend’s seat, the one that got everyone to be quiet- Ginny, I think she said her name was?”

“She was already heading up to her room when all the commotion happened,” Harry said, “So, if you’d like to take her seat, you’re welcome to,” he concluded.

Severus had not considered this possibility. After breakfast this morning, he’d assumed Potter would want to keep well away from him. Especially after Weasley had yelled at him. But then, Potter hadn’t been there for that, and maybe he hadn’t had anything to do with it.

He could almost hear Dumbledore’s voice in his head, urging him to take him up on Potter’s offer.

And so, he did.

For the next couple of hours, until it was a more reasonable time to actually go to bed, he and Potter sat in the common room together in a more companionable silence than Severus had thought Potter to be capable of.

Even better, by the time Severus quietly got up to go to bed, the stares and whispers from the Gryffindors had died down almost completely. He was not yet as invisible as he had been during his own school days in Slytherin, but he would take what he could get for now.

As he settled into his bed in Gryffindor tower, curtains firmly closed and spelled for privacy, he congratulated himself on a job well done.