Monday morning came far too quickly for Harry’s liking. The meeting with Slytherin had gone on till dinner, and even when they had all separated for the meal, eaten, and he, Severus, Draco, Sirius and Remus were down in Severus’ quarters, ideas had still been thrown around and rolled over among them. Harry and Draco had finally been chased to bed after Sirius let slip a wide yawn and Severus was jolted from his torrid thoughts, somewhere near one a.m. After dosing them both with something called a Resting Potion, Snape snapped them off to bed, and Harry had been asleep before he ever saw his bed.

It was the first day of classes, and Harry didn’t want to go. Moreover, he wasn’t anywhere near ready. Before he even had time to roll over and brush his hair, it seemed, Severus and Draco were rushing him out of the rooms.

“You’re going to make us late, Harry!” Draco bellowed from down the hall. Harry was desperately trying to dry his hair before putting on his school uniform, having just taken to shortest shower in the history of hygiene.

“Stop yelling, boy!” Severus shouted from his bedroom. “This is not the residence of uncivilized hoodlums!”

“Morning!” called Sirius loudly, stepping out of the fireplace in long, elegant dress robes. Harry tugged once more at his tie, before racing out to greet his godfather.

“Whoa,” he said, coming to stand next to Draco, who was fingering the wide cuff of the man’s robes. “You’re all dressed up, Siri. Important family business?”

Sirius grinned, running a hand through Draco’s hair. “Well, yes. But I’m also gonna do some gloating, haggle a few Ministry employees, get in Lucius’ way, that sort of thing.”

“Be careful,” Harry and Draco said at the same time. The blonde sent him an annoyed look, and Harry just grinned. He might have been upset that Sirius and Draco were sort of making their own family a few days ago, or anytime this past summer, but now, he didn’t really care. He had Severus, and that evened it out. Besides, it wasn’t even like Sirius wouldn’t be around. Really, he and Draco were practically brothers. The thought sent him giggling into the couch.

“What’s so funny, Potter?” Draco asked. He had always known the Gryffindor was mad…..

“We’re brothers!” Harry burst out, and the look on Draco’s face sent him into another wave of giggling.

“What do you mean, we’re brothers, Potter?” Draco asked, slightly alarmed. “We aren’t related in any kind of way!”

“Oh yeah we are,” Harry laughed, reaching for his new book-bag. “Sev is adopting me, making me his son, and Siri is adopting you, making you his son. And Sev and Siri are both our godfathers, which is like second fathers, so these two guys are basically adopting each other’s kid.”

Draco snorted in amusement. “Only you would think of that, Harry.” He watched the boy laugh on the couch, face red and eyes squeezed tightly shut, and suddenly found himself laughing as well. Who would have thought, Draco and Harry, sworn enemies for four years, would be brothers, sharing the same quarters and getting along civilly with each other?

Severus stormed in, scowling. “Why haven’t you two left for classes yet? Have you forgotten Harry still needs to eat breakfast?” He shifted his gaze from the stupidly giggling children to the amused animagus standing near the fireplace. “Just what is the cause of so much amusement?”

“Nothing,” Sirius answered, eyes twinkling. Severus growled. “Harry just deduced that he and Draco are brothers, since you and I are both adopting each other’s godchild.”

Severus eyes narrowed. “Is that so,” he intoned. “And what does that make you and I?”

Harry and Draco stilled, gazing at each other. After seconds of silent staring, they both burst into renewed laughing, holding their stomachs. Harry rolled off the couch, tears rolling down his face, gasping for breath.

Severus was not amused.

*&^*

Twenty minutes later, Harry and Draco were headed for the Great Hall, both wearing slightly sulky expressions. “I hate Stinging Charms,” Harry murmured.

“Yea, well, I hate swats,” Draco answered, one hand sneaking behind him to rub his tender derriere.  “Even if Sirius only gave me one. My bum’s had a rough summer.” He settled his brow into a more displeased stance and began to brood.

Harry snorted. “Sorry, but that was funny.”

“It was not, Potter!” Draco snapped, scandalized. “It’s very serious!” Harry only laughed harder. Draco growled, and stormed off.

Inside the Great Hall, the usual order of things had been thrown out the window. There were Slytherin lower years at every table, some talking amicably to their tablemates, while others seemed to be the focus of lots of negative attention. For a minute, Harry wondered if Step 1: Integration of the Slytherin plan would work or flop. He nibbled his lip, thinking of everything riding on the snakes getting along with the rest of Hogwarts, and frowned. It had to. This plan had to work, because people’s lives depended on it.

 Brow set in a stubborn line, Harry strode into the Great Hall, resisting the urge to roll his eyes at the dip and then swell in conversation at his entrance. Looking around, Harry saw Draco had stopped to talk to talk to a group of first years getting a hard time at the older end of the Gryffindor table, but only seemed to draw attention to himself. As the slim fifth year walked off in the direction of the Slytherin table, one of the seventh year lions reached out and spun him around roughly.

“Hey!” Harry called, stalking over. Whispering rushed up and died down all around the room as Harry approached the would-be confrontation. “Leave him alone, Connor. He hasn’t done anything to you, has he?”

Connor, a quiet boy with wicked looking eyebrows, rose from his seat, towering over the two fifth years. “Other than being a great, stinking ferret ponce, no, he hasn’t. What’s it to you, Potter?”

“Quite a bit,” Harry said, reaching up to tug at his hair. “All the snakes are off limits from here on out, got it?”

“No, I don’t,” the older boy sneered. “What’s the matter, Potter? Sneaking around with the Greasy Git all weekend make you go soft? Since you’ve been taking the Head Snake up the –“

He never said anymore. Quite suddenly Connor was suspended high into the air, a large brilliantly blue ball of fire hovering around him. The temperature of the room had dropped, crystallized frost creeping up the windows, chandeliers and walls. Harry wasn’t paying any of this the slightest bit of attention, though, as he was concentrating on not wringing the seventh year’s neck.

“Harry,” Draco called, tugging at his shoulder. “Harry, let him go.”

“I’m sick of people thinking the worst of Professor Snape, Draco, I really am.”

“Yeah, I know, “Draco answered, leaning close and looking up at the frightened boy. The entire Great Hall was eerily silent and still, whether in fear of awe, Draco didn’t know. “Until a few days ago, you were kind of one of them.”

“I never thought he’d do that, not to anyone!”

“Well, fine. But most people, when they decide someone is evil, they won’t put anything past them, got it?”

“It’s stupid,” Harry whispered. Above them, Connor shifted, and Harry let him drop a few feet before catching him. “Why does he let them?”

“He’s got a job to do, Harry.” Draco whispered back. “Remember, that whole spy business? It’s important for his image that all the nice, innocent children of the Light think the worst of the mean old Greasy Potions Professor, because everyone knows he was in league with You-Know-Who,” Draco mocked. When Harry didn’t respond, he sighed. “Let the idiot go, Harry. You’re scaring the firsties.”

Silently, Harry dropped the older boy back into his seat, ignoring the shouts of alarm around him. “Stop badmouthing Professor Snape,” he warned, then turned on his heel and stalked over to the Slytherin table without waiting for the boy, or anyone else, to reply.

“Great going, Potter,” was the first thing he heard as he sat down. Across the table, Pansy was sending him a look that was positively poisonous, her dark wavy hair fanning our around her pale face. “That was so low key, I’m sure none of the professors sitting at the head table saw that.” Around the table, students eyed them and shifted nervously. “And just maybe the Ministry official posing as a Professor went completely blind during that entire show!”

“Shut your face, Parkinson,” Draco mumbled, sitting down and pulling a platter of sausages towards him. “He was defending Snape.”

“I don’t care who he was defending!” the girl hissed. “He’s going to blow this whole plan and get us all killed!” The third years closest to Pansy slid away from her in trepidation, eyeing the trembling silverware in fear.

“I meant what I said last night.” Harry looked up from his plate to meet the girl’s eyes. “I promised to protect you all from Voldemort. I will protect you all from Voldemort. Trust me.”

“I have no reason to trust you, Potter,” Pansy spat, leaning across the table to get in his face.

“That’s true.” He speared a sausage from Draco’s plate and looked up at the livid girl. “Make one up.” And with that, he turned back to his breakfast.

In a fit of pique, Pansy slammed both hands against the table, snatched up her bag and stormed out of the Great Hall. The students, who had all gone back to frantic whispering the minute Harry took his seat, increased their chatter with every step the girl took.

“Smooth, Harry,” Draco said, coming up for air from his plate and dabbing at the corner of his mouth with a napkin.

“Shut up, Black,” Harry mumbled, stabbing his eggs viciously.

Draco grinned. “Touchy, are we?” At Harry’s glare he said, “Don’t blame me. I’m not the one who held a seventh year up in the air and threatened to impale him with his own wand a few minutes ago.”

Harry frowned. “You’d think a professor would have come to give me a detention by now.” He turned to look at the blonde boy, which he found much easier than looking up to the head table.

“Well, yes, but they’ve been sitting there staring at you and talking amongst themselves using their deeply-disturbed-but-contemplative looks. Probably trying to think about the best way to approach you. That has to count for something, right?”

Harry sighed. He was the freak once again. Couldn’t he do anything right?

Draco sent his friend a concerned look. “Sev isn’t up there,” he pointed out helpfully. “He hasn’t come to breakfast yet. And neither has Lupin. Neither of them knows of your horrible breakfast fiasco, so you’ve got at least two hours to think of some kind of excuse, if you plan it right.”

“Look, let’s just get to class, yeah?” Harry said tiredly. “The sooner we get that over with, the better.”

“Anxious to get rid of me, are you Potter?” Draco asked, one eyebrow raised.

“I can’t wait to have a bit of thinking time for myself, yes,” the dark-haired child answered.

Draco scoffed. “I don’t believe you.” He ran a hand over his robes primly. “You know you’ll be lost without me. I’ll be the only thing on your mind till you see me at lunch,” was stated with the boy’s patented self-important air.

“You wish, Malfoy.”

“I don’t have to. I know it’s true.”

Harry rolled his eyes at the blonde teen. “Come on”, he said. “We don’t want to be late for Potions.”

Grabbing up his bag, Harry rushed out of the Great Hall, turned a corridor on skidding shoes, and ran smack into another person.

“Oomph! Sorry,” he hurried to say. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t watching where I was going – “

Harry trailed off, noticing that the person he’d bumped into was not at all behaving like a hallway collision victim usually would.

First of all, she held a hand up to her head, where she’d hit it on the floor when he’d bumped into her. Secondly, she peered at his robe front, gave a bright smile and said “Right on schedule.” Harry watched bemusedly as she pulled a square of parchment from her pocket and made a tick using a Muggle pen. “Nine o’ three: get run over by rampaging Gryffindor, check. Splendid!”

She tucked the pen and parchment away and fastened her large amethyst eyes on Harry. “Hello there.” Her face split into a grin. “In a hurry were we?”

“Uhh … Yea. I, uh, need, to, you know, get to class, um, or I’ll be, um, its bad, you know, if I’m, uh, not in class, when, uh, it starts, uh, see.” Harry didn’t know why, but he felt funny. Why couldn’t he string together a complete sentence? He blushed harder.  What the hell was going on?

“Uh, huh. “ She folded her arms over her chest, and raised one of her slender shoulders. “Maybe you should get going then?”

“Right.” Harry nodded enthusiastically. “Yea, I mean, you’re right. I’ll be going. So I won’t be late.” He couldn’t seem to get a handle on his head. “I’ll see you later.”

She nodded, still smiling serenely. “Ok. Bye.”

“Bye.”

A pause. Then,

“It might help if you actually got up, though.”

Harry looked down.

Bad move.

On the fourth day of September, seconds before his first class of the school term began, Harry James Potter got his first up close and personal view of the front of a teenage girl’s white cotton uniform short.

His face was on fire. “Oh buggering hell.” He hastily rolled off of her, pulling both of them to their feet and then quickly letting go of the arms he had used to haul her up. “I’m so, so, so incredibly sorry. I never should have done that. I didn’t mean to do that. Honest.” He held his arms out in front of him, palms facing her. “I’m so, so very sorry. I didn’t mean to. I was rushing and you were there and then suddenly we were both here and then you started talking and then I forgot honestly ‘cause you were so comfortable I didn’t think I was squishing you.“ His eyes widened as he listened to himself.  “Not that I liked laying on top of you, or anything, because I didn’t, I don’t like laying on top of girls, not, I mean, that there was a problem with the way you feel or anything, its just that I – “

It took a moment for Harry to realize that’s his mouth was moving but no words were coming out. Finally piecing everything together, he nearly collapsed with relief. ‘O sweet Merlin, Henry and Circe, bless whoever was the brilliant soul that cast that Silencing Charm.’

“I thought it was about time you shut up.” The girl eyed Harry thoughtfully. He wasn’t sure what to make of her standing so close to him, seeing as he refused to look at anything save the corridor floor. All he could see was her shoe standing just on the edge of his peripheral vision. “I suppose whoever cast that Silencing Charm must really like you, to keep you from making a bigger fool of yourself like that. “

She sighed, and Harry saw the edges of her robe flutter. “Can you point me in the direction of the Headmaster’s office? I’m afraid that now we’re both quite late for our respective engagements.”

Harry nodded to his feet, and pointed along the corridor he had just exited. “Back down that way, when you come to the Great Hall, double back onto the next hallway and follow it to the stone gargoyle. The password is ‘peppermint patties.’

His head snapped up then. What happened to the silencing charm? The girl said nothing, but raised a single elegant eyebrow. It made Harry’s insides melt. She stepped around him, and gave a tiny salute.

“See you then. Try not to run over anyone else on your way, will you?”

And before Harry could think of a reply, she as gone.

*~*~*

Snape’s raised eyebrow when he walked into class five minutes late made him want to sink into the floor. He ducked his head and scurried into the seat Draco had saved for him. He didn’t look around the class, but he was sure Hermione was giving him the evil eye. He frowned, pulling out his text. It wasn’t his fault she wanted to act that way. He hadn’t done a thing wrong. Why should he apologize?

He tried to ignore the nudge Draco gave him with his elbow as he began preparing for the lecture, but nearly fell out of his chair when the blonde boy made it a sharp jab. Shooting the boy a glare, Harry righted himself in his seat and set out his books and ingredients for the lesson. After nearly two minutes of Draco’s insistent staring, Harry muttered, “Tell you in Charms” to both him and Ron and finally had a bit of space.

Rolling his eyes, he tried to pay attention to the lecture the professor was giving. This year wasn’t like any of the years before. He was actually going to like Potions, he could feel it. Professor Snape wasn’t out to make him look like a fool, and the Slytherins were actually being civil, in their own Slytherin way. And even if the Potion on the board looked like some advanced experiment created by some ancient Egyptian mummy, this year was going to be better.

Half hour later, and Harry was sure this was the worst Potions class in the history of Potions classes. The professor had told them to pair up, and, as planned, every Slytherin had attached themselves to a Gryffindor. Draco had been peeved though, because Blaise Zabini made it to Harry’s other side before he could even blink, leaving him to partner with Ron. From what Harry could see, though the two boys were actually paying extreme attention to the instructions, their potion was issuing blue smoke and an acrid stench that made their eyes water. Snape swooped in from nowhere and waved the stink away. Hermione and Pansy weren’t having much better luck, and from there the whole class went downhill. Snape was stalking up and down the class, peering into cauldrons and gracing their owners with his surliest of sneers. Only Neville seemed to be impervious of the man’s attitude, which was a wonder in itself. But the fact that Neville’s potion was closest to the indicated color it should be at this stage was enough to clear the man’s surly expression even for the briefest moment.

While Snape was bent low over Neville’s assignment, murmuring questions to the boy, or comments to himself, Harry wasn’t sure, he turned back to his and Blaise’s potion, and for the third time that lesson found the boy staring at him.

“What?” he asked, exasperated, looking over his shoulder to make sure Snape was still occupied.

“Nothing,” Blaise answered, going back to powdering the newt’s tails needed for the next step. “Your Muggles, though, and Dumbledore, I just can’t believe it.”

Harry tended the fire under their work nervously, wondering how much of a baby would he look like if he called the professor over to offer the other boy a distraction. “Don’t believe it, then. I don’t need you to,” he mumbled, taking the ingredient from Blaise and pouring it in carefully. The concoction was still some awful shade of purple, when it should be almost a green-like blue, and Harry was worried. He didn’t need Blaise to add to his problems, really.

“But you’re the old man’s Golden Boy. Harry Potter, The-Boy-Dumbledore-Would-Move-Heaven-And-Earth-To-Please –“

“Well he didn’t, did he?” Harry snapped, fixing the boy with flashing green eyes. Unbeknownst to him, every flame in the room had gone out in the wake of his fit of anger. Jars and vials trembled on their stands, and tables and chairs, including those holding students, were slowly, slowly inching away from his and Blaise’s work area. “He didn’t do anything when I told him I didn’t want to be there, and he didn’t do anything when Professor Snape told him what was happening to me, alright? I don’t want to talk about this, and I don’t want to hear you say anything else about me, or Dumbledore, or ‘my Muggles’, got it?”

“But why didn’t he?” Blaise pushed, ignoring the fact that their potion was bubbling ominously next to him, or that Professor Snape seemed to be trying to reach them but couldn’t make it past a barrier of some sort. “He’s done nothing but love you since you got here, and now suddenly nothing? How does that make sense?”

There was a chilly silence in the room for three seconds. An incredible burning rage filled Harry from somewhere, flooded into him and crawled out of the pit of his stomach to leak into his blood and the walls shook and the floors shook and suddenly every single cauldron in the room exploded. Animal bits ad gunk oozed down the sides of the invisible dome, and Severus privately thanked every deity he had ever heard of that Harry was, even unconsciously, guarding them.

“What part of I don’t want to hear anything else didn’t you understand?” The question was low, and gravelly and fairly tingled in the air, and Blaise finally realized the danger he was in. Harry was absolutely tense, one hand clenched fiercely around his stirring rod, every muscle in his body clenched and ready to strike. “He does not love me,” he bit out, just as the walls began to shake. “He has never loved me.”

The floor trembled, as did the ceiling, shifting silt and dust so that it fell through the air softly, giving the room an otherworldly look about it.

That idiot. That bloody idiot! Didn’t he understand what he meant by leave it bloody well alone? Harry shivered, liquid fire crawling up his spine. He didn’t want to hear about Dumbledore and all of his lies. He didn’t want to hear about the old man at all. It still hurt too deep. That he knew, he knew and hadn’t done anything, hadn’t said anything – Harry couldn’t think about it. He shivered again, trying to force his magic down. What had Sev said last night? A thread of thought hovered out of his reach, before slipping away completely. Chills coursed through him again, and Harry gave up.

‘Sev?’

Tobias Snape had never been a man of patience, and it was a trait that was passed on to his son in spades. Severus was fairly shaking with suppressed anxiety by the time Harry’s timid voice broke into his mind. Damned brat. Didn’t he know better than to cause such a stir on the first day of classes? And so soon after the breakfast fiasco Minerva was raving about. Severus was tense, his forehead throbbing. What he needed right now was an extra-strength headache potion, but he was unlikely to get it any time soon.

He had gone from apathetic at having to teach yet another class of dunderheads today, to shocked beyond all reason by Longbottom’s potion, to scared out of his mind when potions ingredients and unfinished assignments started to react all around the classroom. His one source of relief was that the students were all being moved to safe distances around the perimeter of the room. All save one, and when Severus Snape was done with Blaise Zabini, the boy would wish he had never heard of Hogwarts with such a fervent passion it may even come true. But, for now, he had a volatile, untrained mage to calm down. Oh joy.

‘Yes, child? I’m here, do not worry, but I cannot reach you. You need to calm down so that your magic will stop blocking me.’

‘Can’t calm down, Sev. Blaise is an idiot.’ Harry clutched the desk with a death grip, and the trembling of the classroom increased two fold. ‘Get everyone out of here, Sev!’

The potions master nearly graced the boy with a death glare. Did he think he was an idiot, content to stand and gape while danger loomed eminent? ‘You are blocking the door, idiot boy.’

Harry gritted his teeth. This was just incredible. Here he was having an incredible magical tantrum, and he couldn’t even get everyone out to safety. Bloody brilliant. Someone shifted next to him, and Harry tensed, causing an entire wall of shelves to plummet to the ground.

“Bloody hell, Potter,” Zabini whispered. The boy shifted again, and to Harry the sound was like nails rating on glass. “You’re going to bloody kill us all, aren’t you?”

Harry snarled, releasing the desk and spinning on the taller boy. “No, but I’d really like to hex you right now.” The air around him had taken on a faintly bluish tinge and crackled, something that made Blaise’ eyes widen fearfully. “Why you couldn’t just shut up like I asked you, I’ll never understand.”

Blaise was backing away, one hand reaching into his robes for his wand. “Y-you don’t want to h-help us, y-y-you’re g-going to k-kill us! You’re going to kill us all!” the boy screamed.

Around him, shards of glass and wood rose into the air and whipped into a furious tornado above his ward’s head, and Severus swore in every language he knew. He was going to KILL Zabini! He as going to wring his bloody neck! Spinning around, he came face to face with the Granger, and felt his anger peak.

“Get out of my bloody face, little girl, before I make you regret being born,” he snarled, and was half surprised and half peeved when she ignored his ire and had the gall to address him.

“The barrier is gone. I’ve started moving the students out, but you need to calm him down.” The wind had whipped locks of her thick hair into her face and eyes, but the girl paid it no mind. “You work on that, and I’ll keep Zabini from being murdered, yes?”

Without another word, the Gryffindor darted around him and into the fray. It wasn’t till she was halfway to the two students did he realize she had pulled him down to her level, and that he was bent over awkwardly. But the girl was true to her word. The class was near empty, both Slytherins and Gryffindors edging out slowly, rather than making a mad dash for the exit. It was smart, he supposed, though he wasn’t sure to award credit to his snakes for sharing their sense of self-preservation with the lions, or to Granger for instructing the students to leave slowly. Either way, it was unimportant at the moment, as he had to keep Harry from destroying a bit of Hogwarts.

Carefully crossing the distance between him and his rather small boy, Severus stowed his wand (where had that come from?) and moved to cut off Harry’s view of the Slytherin, who was resisting the Granger’s every attempt to remove him from the classroom. Sparing the pair his most contemptuous look, Severus turned to his ward, who was burning a hole through his chest with his eyes.

“Here, child, look at me, let’s see of we can calm you down now,” e murmured, risking a limb as he reached out and brushed the boy’s hair out of his eyes.

Still shaking, Harry clenched his eyes shut. He couldn’t let Sev see, he COULDN’T! It would hurt the man, to know the boy he had accepted as a son was hurting over the lies of someone else. When the man brought both hands up to cup his face, he had to bite his lip to keep from sobbing. No! No no no no no!

What the devil was wrong with the boy! “Hush, child. It’s alright. Cease this ridiculous display and relax,” Severus murmured soothingly. Harry’s face was scrunched up in anguish, he assumed, and the tiny fledgling bits of his heart contracted at the sight. “I’m right here, Harry, right here. Just relax.”

But Harry seemed intent on doing the exact opposite. When the boy started shaking his head a split second after his face crumpled, Severus had had enough. “Come now, “he said, stepping close and pulling the boy against him. “Stop this nonsense.” Severus didn’t’ know just what had set the Gryffindor off, but he just wanted this episode over with. In the past weekend alone he had probably seen more tears than he had in all his life. Something was obviously bothering the child and the quickest way to find out what it was was to get the boy to stop crying. “Let it out, child. Nothing here can hurt you.”

And then, Harry cried. He buried his face in the taller man’s robes and gave vent to all his confusing thoughts and emotions. The guilt he was feeling over feeling so comfortable with Snape who had been his enemy, in his own mind, for years, guilt over not seeking out the Headmaster to hear his side of the story and guilt over not being able to write Dumbledore out of his had and heart, even though the man had clearly done the same to him coursed through him and over him and finally out, in the form of hot salty tears. Worry over what the Weasley’s would say when they found out Snape wanted to adopt him, what the papers would say about his guardian when this all got out, what Mord Voldie would do to Sev when he found out, what the DE parents would start doing to their kids….it all crashed over his in a blinding wave. He wasn’t afraid about someone hurting him; he was terrified of him hurting someone else! He’d turned the Potion’s classroom into...into….he didn’t even know anything bad enough to be compared to what he did today. It was horrible, and all Harry could do was cling to his Snape and sob his heart out.

And while Severus carded his fingers through Harry’s hair, and Harry cried all of his frustrations into the man’s shoulder, Hermione and Blaise stood behind them, one shocked and the other mystified, but both unwilling to disturb the sudden peace that had fallen on the classroom. For as soon as Severus had pulled Harry close to him, the room’s trembling had ceased, and the howling mass of glass and wood that had spun angrily above their heads had fallen softly, harmlessly to the ground.  

The sounds of hurried footsteps sounded down the corridor, and Severus mentally swore he would hex the first person that broke the silence. Hermione, it seemed, though, was not a know-it-all for nothing. With some quick, quiet wand work a silencing charm blanketed the room, and with one last glance at the dark haired pair in the center of the room, she yanked the still reeling Slytherin around and frog-marched him out of the classroom.

What became of them and who they met outside the door of his classroom, Severus could not find the strength to care. He shifted, rubbing his chin against the top of Harry’s head, and sighed. There was absolutely never a dull moment when Harry Potter was around. Never a single one.