Severus Snape had gone straight to the teacher’s room after the trio had left him. He needed a drink, dear god, and he knew that if he drank alone he would keep on drinking until that hole inside him was filled. And that was too much alcohol for one man to take.
The room was mostly empty, save for Minerva who was grading papers by the fire and Lockhart, who was loudly telling Filius about his narrow escape from a ravenous gang of goblins who were ready to suck his bloo—he seemed to be mixing and matching his old adventures into something completely new. Snape smirked as he watched the man nervously keep combing his hair over a large bald spot. You would think, Severus wondered as he headed to Minerva’s chair, that a Defense teacher could handle a pregnant Doxie. Apparently not.
He sat in the chair next to Minerva and summoned himself a glass of Fire Whiskey.
“Bit early in the term for drinking, isn’t it, Severus?” Minerva asked without looking up from her papers. When she did look up, her face became worried. “You look horrible.”
“Thank you, Minerva. I had truly needed that comment to make my evening complete,” Severus drawled as he downed that glass. It magically refilled itself, and he took another swig.
“What’s wrong?”
Severus ignored that question and instead went for one of his own. “What happens to the Muggleborns?”
Her forehead wrinkled. “Pardon?”
“Muggleborns. What happens to Muggleborns and half-bloods under the protection laws of the Ministry?”
“They obey them, I suppose. Severus, what’s the matter?”
“They—they fall through the cracks, that’s what happens.” He took another long drink. “They fall through the cracks, just like I fell through the cracks. The Ministry lets the Muggle’s take care of it and the Muggle’s don’t notice because they’re Muggles.”
Minerva seemed to understand a little bit, then. Something had set Severus onto a memory jaunt, and she was going to have to bring him back. “That was a long time ago, Severus,” she said softly. “It’s handled better now.”
Severus snorted. “You say that, everyone says that, but that bit won’t ever change. There’ll always be kids that fall through the cracks, and they’ll grow up to be like me. Bitter and hateful to people, because they blame them for not noticing.” He gave Minerva a hard look, then, and took another drink. “Did you notice?”
Minerva felt shame burning in her cheeks, and she put down her quill. “No,” she said quietly. “I didn’t notice.”
“No one notices. And, and you can’t blame them, because they’re just naïve. They don’t want to think that those sorts of things happen. Human beings want to believe that everything’s wonderful, but it isn’t, Minerva. It isn’t wonderful.”
“Severus—“
“It’s not, especially when you slip through the cracks and nobody cares.”
“Severus, are we talking about you or someone else?”
Severus looked at her, one long, shrouded look, and he took another drink. “You need to learn to notice,” he said, “Because if they don’t notice, you feel like—you feel like you don’t exist.” He found himself echoing Harry’s words from earlier that evening. “And that’s all you want, to exist for a minute.”
“Severus, is this you or is this someone else?” Fear was making it’s way to Minerva’s heart, fear that had been growing since she perched on a wall on November 1st. “Severus, are we talking about Harry?”
Severus simply gave her another, shrouded look and finished his whiskey.
“People need to notice,” he said, and he left the room, leaving Minerva listening to the inane drivel of Lockhart and worrying about something she could never change—and something that, this time around, she could.
0000000000000000000
Harry woke the next morning to see a blurry outline of Neville and Hermione perched at the end of his bed. He sat up quickly—his back gave a twinge of painful protest, though not as painful as it had been—and he groped on his nightstand for his glasses.
“Where—where’s everyone else?”
“At breakfast,” Neville said. “I set all the alarms for an hour earlier so we’d have time alone before classes.”
Harry nodded and pushed his glasses on. He didn’t look either of his friends in the face.
“Can—can I get dressed?” he finally asked, and Hermione blushed and stepped out of the room with Neville trailing behind her.
Harry pulled on his shirt and trousers and robe and was doing up his tie when Neville and Hermione came back in the room.
“I just want to say, we still like you and all,” Neville said bluntly, and Hermione nodded and looked at Harry.
“Of course we do. And—we don’t think of you any differently than we did before, Harry, honest.”
Harry swallowed twice and nodded. “I—I would understand. If you didn’t—didn’t want to stay friends.”
Neville looked flabberghasted, and Hermione looked gentle. “Why would we want that, Harry?” she asked.
“Because—because I lied to you. About the Dursleys.”
Neville snorted. “Rubbish. You’re my best friend, Harry, you and Hermione both, and I won’t ever let that change. So, so you had a secret. I have secrets, Hermione has secrets. Your—your secret was a bit bad and all, but it doesn’t—I still like you.”
“But I lied. I didn’t trust you.”
“Fine. But, but trust is hard to do, sometimes, and you’ll trust us plenty. You trust us more than you trust other people, right?”
“More than anyone,” Harry said, then added quietly, “Except Snape.”
“There. See? I—you don’t need to tell us everything, Harry, not if you don’t want to. But you can’t—you have to tell us if, if you’re in danger.”
Harry nodded, and he almost jumped out of his skin when he heard Hermione go ‘Oh, Harry,’ and felt her throw her arms around him. He was even more surprised when Neville joined in.
They just stayed there a moment. They they got up and Neville lead the group to breakfast, where he piled pancakes and sausage on both of their plates.
00000000000000000
The day went by quickly, though Lockhart’s class was especially amusing, at least in the beginning. Ron hadn’t been lying when he said chunks of Lockhart’s hair had been pulled out. He had somehow grown them back, but they were lighter, straighter, and thinner than the old hair, which made him look lopsided and spotted. He had been in a very bad temper about it after Seamus asked him if he’d been the victim of a horrific hair-trimming accident, giving all the Gryffindor boys detention. Seamus hadn’t been popular at the end of that class.
Harry’s back was throbbing at the end of class. He had, of course, been called up and had to act the part this time of an irritable and cannibalistic vampire who had fainted upon smelling garlic. Harry had to keep fainting, so he was not in a pleasant mood when he left the classroom that afternoon.
He had walked to the dungeons slowly that night, and when he knocked on the door he was not surprised to be pulled into the room with very little delay.
“Let me see your back,” Snape demanded as he summoned more balms and things in vials.
“Please, sir, it’s all better now—“
“Let me see your back now, Potter, or I will not be responsible for the raging infection that may ensue and the injections that will be necessary to rid you of it.”
Harry relented. “Madam said that wizards don’t give injections,” he said softly as he unbuttoned his shirt and turned around.
“I,” Snape said, baring his teeth, “Am not Madam.” He gave the wounds a quick look over, then smoothed the lotion over them once again and released the boy. After the boy had re-clothed himself, Severus pointed to the chair.
“Sit. We must have a talk, Mr. Potter.”
“Yes, sir.”
“The behaviour of your relatives is escalating at an alarming rate.”
“Sir—“
“No, Potter. Let me finish. Their behaviour is becoming increasingly hostile and I will not allow it to continue anymore.”
“But—you said that the Ministry couldn’t do much. That it would get worse.”
“Which is true. However, there are ways to get around the ministry, Potter, but they do involve telling the headmaster.”
“Sir—“
“Surely, Mr. Potter, you have noticed that no one seems to blame you in the slightest for this—atrocity?”
“Uncle Vernon—“
“Damn your uncle and damn you also, Potter! The headmaster must be alerted before this escalates to something serious.”
Harry could almost hear Hermione’s indignant voice protesting that it already was serious.
“But sir—“
“Potter, I have tried. I have tried to respect your wishes, but you will not allow me to make even basic safeguards over you! I cannot do it, Potter, I cannot send you off there once more without something a little more tangible than your word.”
“I—sir, please don’t tell the headmaster—“ Harry said. “Please, I can—I’ll wear the necklace next time, I will!”
“Potter—“
“Please, sir, I’ll wear it and, and I don’t want to live with Dumbledore or at school or anything, I—“
“Potter—“ Snape started again, and he sighed. “We’ll discuss this more as the school year starts to end, all right?”
Harry nodded, relief written all over his face. “Yes, sir.” He then thanked the professor again and made a swift exit.
000000000000000000000000
The rest of the year seemed to fly by, for Harry. He, Hermione, and Neville spent time working with Hagrid, the groundskeeper, on the vegetable gardens for extra credit with Prof. Sprout and learned to enjoy the mans company tremendously. Neville had almost burst into tears when Hagrid was taken away.
“But—but why? He’s not the Heir of Slytherin. It’s not fair.”
“Aw, look at the fat arse blubber,” Draco Malfoy had teased, and then he’d thrown an apple at Neville. “C’mon, fat arse, wail like that giant friend of yours did when they took him away.” Draco then proceeded to do a very poor Hagrid impersonation. “Aw, but I din’t do nuffin! Don’t take me off ter Azkaban!” He and his friends all burst into laughter at that, and Hermione had to restrain both Harry and Neville from attacking the boy.
Lockhart’s detention had been all five Gryffindor boys answering fan mail from various witches. There had been a minor fuss made over the lack of Seymour, but Seamus spun a quick lie about a terrible case of Dragon Pox and the scarring effects it could have on adults and the matter was soon dropped. Harry heard, all night long, the terrible voice whispering and making him splatter ink all over the letters. Neville had started to use the ink splatters as a connect the dots game, though, which had helped Harry. Gladys Gudgeon, he imagined, would probably not be too thrilled to see a connect the dot dragon on her letter where Lockhart’s signature was supposed to be, but it made Harry ecstatic.
Neville and Hermione had, true to their words, not changed at all in manner to Harry, except that Hermione would sometimes reach for his hand and squeeze it, tightly, before letting go. Neville had made no more mention of anything unless Harry brought it up—which Harry rarely did.
Meanwhile, all around the school the attacks continued. Hermione had taken to forcing the three of them to spend massive amounts of time in the library, reading through thick old books trying to figure out the mystery.
And through it all, they never got close. Not until one day when Harry grabbed Ron’s potions book instead of his own and dashed off to the library with it.
“Oops,” Harry said as he pulled it out of his bag. “I grabbed the wrong one. I should bring it back—“
Neville snorted. “Like Ron’s studying potions anyway.”
Harry grinned and flipped open the book to the section on Petrifing Potions. “I really don’t think that the Heir is wasting time making the victims drink a potion, Hermione, too much could go wro—“ Harry said, then stopped as a small leatherbound book fell out of the book.
“What’s that?” Neville asked idly.
“Dunno—looks like a journal.”
“Ron keeps a journal?”
“Dunno.” Harry flipped through it carefully. “It’s empty.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think Ron kept a diary.”
Hermione looked up from her latest tome. “You two should stop goggling that thing and start working. We still have to study for exams, you know.”
Harry and Neville groaned good naturedly and started working, harry putting both books into his bag and forgetting about them until History of Magic the next day.
Harry had used all his History of Magic parchment in a vicious tic-tac-toe tournament with Neville, and Hermione was finally cracking down on them for their disgraceful lack of History of Magic notes.
“Exams are in two weeks, you two, and you are going to need some proper notes to study from!” she had scolded, and the boys had meekly nodded and promised.
Neville was out of paper as well, so Harry was frantically digging through his bag when he came across the notebook, which Neville immediately snatched.
“Hermione will kill us,” he whispered as he dunked his quill into the inkwell on the desk. “We’ll rip out the pages, Ron will never know. He isn’t even in class, he’s in the Infirmary.”
Harry, thinking of Hermione’s formidable wrath, nodded quickly as Neville started to take notes.
‘Billius the Big-Headed: born in 237 BC, leader of revoluti—‘ Neville started to scrawl, but he stopped, staring, as the paper ate the ink.
“Is—Maybe it’s one of the twins pranks,” Harry whispered, darting a look to the front of the room. Both boys kept looking at the paper and Harry gripped Neville’s arm tightly in disbelief as cursive, faintly irritated handwriting began to permeate the surface of the paper.
‘I thought I told you not to write notes in here, Ron.’
Harry and Neville exchanged wide eyed looks, and Neville scribbled ‘Sorry, I forgot.’
”This isn’t right,” Harry whispered. “Ron’ll kill us.”
Neville nodded and made to close the book, but more writing appeared. ‘Have you found out any more about Potter?’
Neville looked quickly at Harry, and Harry furrowed his forehead.
‘No, sorry, nothing new,’ Neville wrote, and waited for the reply.
‘Sometimes I wonder why I bother using you, Ron. You’re such a pathetic little worm, no one would guess you were a pureblood. I still might feed you to the basilisk, you know. So find out more.’
Neville closed the book and looked at Harry.
“This,” he said softly, “is not good.”