The next morning, the Headmaster announced that Professor Umbridge had left Hogwarts, prompting the student body to direct looks of awe at Hermione. Her “Splat the Toad!” campaign had spread like wildfire through the school, and now – presto! – the toad was gone. Students shivered at the thought of what else she might do, if sufficiently provoked, but at the same time it was a little comforting to know that they had someone on their side who could even dispose of faculty members.

Even after details of the Blood Quill incident came out, the students still retained their conviction that Hermione’s “STT!” movement had been the inciting factor behind Umbridge’s disappearance. After all, most didn’t know what a Blood Quill was, and no one but Snape had seen Dumbledore’s fury – let alone McGonagall’s – but everyone knew how unfairly Umbridge had treated Hermione and the other Muggleborns.

Harry was a little surprised to see that Hermione was getting more credit for Umbridge’s removal than he was, but since he genuinely preferred not to attract people’s notice, he didn’t mind at all. Jones and Percy were too relieved at not being punished for attacking a faculty member to want to remind anyone of their role in the incident, so a puzzled Hermione enjoyed the kudos of the other students.

Fudge, although initially alarmed by Umbridge’s disappearance and quick to blame Hogwarts staff for it, rapidly changed his tune when confronted with the Blood Quill and pensieved memories of Umbridge’s claims. He hastily denied sending her to Hogwarts with those instructions and claimed that she was obviously unbalanced. Having thoroughly disavowed his erstwhile chief assistant, he had fled the school, muttering that he would have the Aurors look into the disappearance. No one expected him to press the matter too strongly, as it would hardly do him any good if the missing witch were found. Dumbledore had been rather angered by Fudge’s desire to sweep the matter under the rug, but McGonagall calmed him by pointing out that while it seemed they would never know where the witch had gone, she doubted Umbridge would ever be seen in Britain again. Dumbledore had sighed and agreed, while Snape had done his best not to shiver at the cool ruthlessness of the head of Gryffindor. And he’d thought he could be vengeful!

With Umbridge gone and his relations with the other students once again untroubled, Harry settled happily into the new term. Dumbledore had resumed teaching DADA classes again, having resignedly abandoned the quest to obtain a replacement instructor for the rest of the year, and Harry had high hopes that all the mysterious goings on would come to a halt now that Umbridge was gone.

Things were to be going well – the other kids were generally treating him as the undistinguished firstie that he longed to be, his professors seemed pleased with his work, his da allowed him and his friends to help with potion ingredients a few times a week, Quidditch was going well, though the winter weather meant that their practices were mostly indoor, off-broom strategy sessions… Yes, all told, Harry felt that this was what a first year at Hogwarts should be: no trolls or Dark Lords or Blood Quills.

Unlike Harry, Snape did not let his guard down. It had been several weeks since Umbridge had left, and although Harry seemed to have relaxed completely, Snape was not so convinced that the mysterious enemy’s attacks had ceased as well. There was of course the possibility that the Pink Toad Bitch Witch Now In Hell had been responsible, but he couldn’t shake the conviction that that kind of covert campaign would not have appealed to Umbitch, who had had the subtlety of a brick.

Sure enough, it was barely two weeks after Umbridge’s “mysterious disappearance” that Snape’s continuing vigilance was rewarded. It was a rainy Sunday afternoon, and a bored Harry had descended upon the dungeons, complaining that everyone else was busy and he had nothing to do.

As he had anticipated, his guardian had promptly ordered him into the lab for several hours of potion ingredient preparation at his side. Harry had worked contentedly, wondering why his da always seemed to prefer scolding him into the lab rather than accepting Harry’s offer to help. Still, the end result was the same, and this way his da didn’t get that befuddled look on his face.

After over four hours o f pickling, slicing, dicing, and shredding, Snape dismissed Harry and went to his office to collect a pile of papers for grading. Harry got washed up – the jellyfish tentacles tended to squish all over him when he tried to puree them – and settled himself comfortably on his bed with one of the books that Remus had sent him. Harry had gotten rather addicted to the Jasper Goodfellow – Auror of the Light series, and Remus was kind enough to send him a new title every month or so. He toyed with the idea of calling a house elf and asking for a snack, but he decided that in an hour or so, he would go into his da’s office and whinge about being hungry. That usually resulted in the two of them having tea together while Snape scolded Harry about not eating properly. Harry grinned. His da really was pretty funny!

Having retrieved his grading and a soon-to-be-needed headache-relieving potion, Snape settled onto the living room couch. He had just finished blasting the first student’s work when his long nose suddenly twitched. What was that?

He sniffed again. Wormwood? Why could he smell wormwood? The only nearby jars were securely locked away in his potions cupboard. Suspicions afire, he drew his wand and stalked towards his supply closet, only to halt in utter shock at the sight before him.

The cupboard had been trashed. There was no other word for it. The doors stood open; one hung askew. Shelves had been swept clean, their contents scattered all over the floor in a malodorous stew. Hours of hard work had been undone in mere moments.

Snape gripped his wand so hard he feared it would snap. Who dared to commit such an outrage? Who would come to his private quarters and destroy his personal property like this? When he got his hands on them – and then he saw the footprints.

The culprit had obviously been unaware that in stepping in the sludge he had created, he had smeared some of the mess on the bottom of his shoes. A trail led out of the cupboard, and Snape, still pale with rage, promptly followed.

The prints were small, indicating one of the younger students, which surprised Snape. He would not have expected a crime of this magnitude from one of the younger children, though perhaps they had been put up to it by one of the older ones. Still, who would do such a thing? Someone from a Death Eater family, sending a message to the traitor? Someone who had felt the rough edge of his tongue and wanted revenge? He couldn’t imagine that one of his snakes would be stupid enough to earn his wrath in this fashion, and surely the Ravenclaws would be too bright, the Hufflepuffs too timid… leaving – of course – the Gryffindors. Wood, maybe? He could easily use his Quidditch captain status to inveigle one of the younger students into doing his dirty work. Or perhaps – Snape jerked to a halt as he realized where the trail had led him.

“Hi, Da,” Harry said cheerfully. “I’m hungry. D’you think we could have some tea?”

Snape blinked at the boy. Harry was reclining on his bed, his stocking feet insouciantly propped against the bedpost, with one of those inane storybooks open on his chest.

Surely no one was that good an actor. But how else to explain the footprints?

Harry looked on in puzzlement as Professor Snape ignored his greeting and instead made a beeline for the shoes he had kicked off when he climbed into bed. Surely his da wasn’t annoyed by the fact that he hadn’t lined them up neatly?

“How did your shoes come to be this soiled?” Snape asked, holding up one shoe so that Harry could see the goo slowly dripping off the sole.

“Yuk! What is that stuff?” Harry asked, wrinkling his nose. He rolled to his knees and held out a hand for the shoe, which his father snatched back.

“Put on your slippers and come with me. I will show you exactly what it is.”

Harry shrugged and obeyed. A moment later, he gaped at the destruction of the supply cupboard just as his father had done. “What – what happened?” he choked.

Snape merely lifted an eyebrow at him, and Harry’s mind rapidly connected the dots. He stared wildly from the cupboard to the footprints and then to the shoe still clutched in his da’s hand. “I – you think that I – but, but I didn’t!” he nearly wailed.

“Then why is there a trail made by your shoes and leading to your bedroom?”

“I don’t know,” Harry said miserably. “But I didn’t do this!”

“So you are suggesting that someone else entered our warded quarters, destroyed my things, and walked in your shoes to your bedroom, all without either of us noticing?” Snape asked, his voice silky. “That seems a more reasonable explanation to you than the idea that you – feeling petulant over some scolding, perhaps – took advantage of my fetching papers from my office to destroy my supplies, then attempted to establish an alibi for yourself by hurrying to your room, not realizing that you were tracking evidence of your crime behind you?”

Harry swallowed hard, his throat thick with dread. Put that way, of course it sounded as if he had done it.

His da leaned close. “Go to your room,” he said, his voice low and dangerous.

Harry turned and fled, half-expecting to feel the sole of his shoe crack across his backside as he went. But his da didn’t touch him, and he threw himself across his bed, already in tears. This was like being back with the Durselys, with incomprehensible things happening around him!

But he had learned that those events had been what his da called “accidental magic” – things like turning his teacher’s hair blue or apparating away from the bullies – and he was supposed to be too old for it anymore. This was that same feeling all over again, only worse, because he hadn’t even been upset or angry when it happened. And how did his shoes get smeared with that mess if he hadn’t been there? But if he had, then why didn’t he remember? He would have sworn that he had been here reading the whole time, but his shoes argued otherwise. They certainly wouldn’t have gone for a walk by themselves…

Could he have done it but not remembered? The only thing that made sense was the bizarre idea that he’d been taken over by someone else, who used his body to do something awful, then left him without a trace and without even the sense of time having passed!

Back in the living room, Snape paced back and forth. Clearly, desperate measures were called for, but what? And how? He couldn’t afford to ignore this, but neither did he want to make the situation even worse. He considered his options carefully and began to plan.

It was close to an hour before Professor Snape again appeared in Harry’s doorway. He regarded the puffy eyed, snot-streaked boy coldly. “Potter, get out here,” he ordered sharply.

Harry snuffled and hastened after his da.

“Do you recall what I told you shortly after I agreed to be your guardian?” Snape demanded, looming over the small boy. “Well?”

Harry wiped at his eyes, trying to guess what his father meant. He’d said a lot of things, about how he wouldn’t ever really hurt him, and how he was responsible for keeping Harry safe and happy, and how he wouldn’t let anyone hurt him again, but somehow none of those seemed likely to be the thing that Professor Snape was talking about right now. Still, better not to admit that he didn’t have a clue. “I – I think so, sir,” he hiccupped nervously.

“Good. Then you will understand me now, when I tell you that I do not BELIEVE this behavior of yours!” Harry rocked backwards at the venom in Snape’s voice.

“You are an atrocious, arrogant little fiend with no respect for others!” Snape continued viciously. “I can’t believe I was stupid enough to bring you into my home like this! You deserve to be expelled and sent back to the Dursleys!” Harry gaped in dismay, his whole world collapsing about his ears. “I will give you one last chance, Potter, but know that the next time, I swear I will throw you out of Hogwarts! Do you understand?”

“I –“ Harry tried to protest, but he couldn’t speak through the tears.

Snape nearly cursed in frustration. The boy was such a Gryffindor, never looking beyond the obvious, despite all his hints! All right – he had one more trick up his sleeve. “No more of your cheek, young man! You have one more chance, but only after you’ve been soundly punished.”

Snape grabbed Harry by his upper arm and dragged him over to the couch. “Do you remember how I warned you that I wouldn’t accept any nonsense from you? How I told you what you could expect if you misbehaved?”

“Y-yes,” Harry squeaked.

“Then you’ll know exactly what’s going on now,” Snape retorted. “Accio hairbrush!”

Harry nearly choked. A hairbrush? His da had sworn he’d never, ever use a hairbrush on him! He began to struggle. It was as if he’d been transported into an alternate reality without noticing. First he had apparently destroyed a potions cupboard without remembering it, now his da was about to break his strongest rule and beat Harry like the Dursleys had. “Nooooo!” he yelled, but he was no match for the angry adult.

In seconds, he was bent over his da’s lap and the man lifted the hairbrush high. “This should send a message to you,” Snape snapped, bringing the brush down with a loud whack across Harry’s rear.

Harry yelped at the noise, waiting for the accompanying sting and burn, but instead it felt as if a hairbrush-sized cushion had been gently swatted against his bum. He twisted around in shock, only to find his father’s gaze upon him. “Well? What did you expect?” Snape asked, smacking him again.

Harry blinked as the light tap was accompanied by the sound of a horrific wallop. “Um…” he managed, utterly bewildered.

Snape rolled his eyes and gave Harry a quick look of exasperation even as he brought down the hairbrush for a third time. “I expect you to use that brain of yours, small though it may be, you dreadful brat,” he scolded.

Harry tried to figure out what was going on. Why was his da acting so weird? If he was really furious, why wasn’t he really hitting? But if he wasn’t angry, then why pretend to punish Harry in the first place? Uncle Vernon sometimes had pretended to be nice to Harry in public when he thought someone was watching, but – Realization struck Harry almost like a physical blow. His da thought someone was watching them!! That’s why he was putting on this show. It was like Professor McGonagall had said about the chairs on the ceiling. If someone was trying to trick you, you tricked them back. You didn’t let on that you knew what the other person was doing – you just played along until you could figure out who they were and what they were up to.

That’s why his da had said all those things and now was pretending to blister Harry’s bum. The wave of relief that washed over him nearly made him burst into tears right then and there. His da didn’t plan to send him back to the Dursleys! He was doing all this because he still loved Harry and wanted to find out who was trying to get him in trouble – or maybe sent away. He felt limp with relief that his terrified thoughts had been unfounded, though in the next moment, he blamed himself for ever doubting his da.

“Try to at least act like a Gryffindor,” Snape ordered gruffly, hiding his own relief as he felt the boy relax across his lap as he finally figured out what was going on. “Like one of those Weaselys!”

Harry snapped back to attention, realizing that now was neither the time for blissful relief or guilty self-condemnation. They were in the middle of a play, sort of, and his da needed Harry to act his part. Like a Weasley, he’d said. Well, Harry guessed he knew what that meant.

“OWWWWWWWWWW!” Harry howled, flailing with all his might as the feather-light hairbrush belabored his behind. “THAT HURTS! OWWWWWWW! STOP! STOP!” He sent a quick mental apology to Ron, but he knew his da thought the redheads were all noisy show-offs, and – to be fair to Snape – the boys did tend to be rather vocal in protesting their punishments. Over the holidays, Harry had seen enough to know that virtually any punishment, from de-gnoming the garden to an early bedtime, was met with loud complaints.

Harry felt his da pat his shoulder in approval, even as he continued scolding and smacking. “Horrible brat! I should just send you away right now, but I will give you one final chance!”

Harry kicked and bawled, pretending he was Dudley and Petunia had just refused him a second helping of pudding (as if that would ever happen!).

Finally, Snape jerked him to his feet and gave him a good shake. “Have you learned your lesson?”

“Y-yes, sir,” Harry sniveled and blubbered, clutching his bum as if in great distress. If only he had known about cushioning charms back when he was living with his relatives!

“Then get to your room and don’t you dare disturb me! I have a very delicate potion simmering in my lab, and if anything happens to it, I will have you back in Surrey before the night is out!”

Harry felt his da spin him around by his shoulders, and then he was sent towards his room with one last hard smack. He scrambled onto his bed and buried his face in his pillow, pretending to sob himself sick. He hoped he was doing a good job.

Snape meanwhile stormed into his lab, made a few minor adjustments to the potion that was brewing there, then stalked out again, still muttering under his breath.

For a few minutes, all was quite in the laboratory, the only noise coming from the potion bubbling quietly away. Then a louder pop intruded, and a ragged house elf appeared in the deserted room. “Bad, bad Dobby!” the elf sobbed, banging his head on the stone floor. “Wicked Dobby!” But then he levitated the cauldron with a quick flick of his finger and flipped it, sending the contents all over the floor.

“Aha.” Snape said silkily, appearing from under Harry’s Invisibilty Cloak in the corner of the room. “What have we here?”

Dobby squeaked in surprise and alarm and tried to vanish, but his efforts were futile. He watched in growing terror as Snape advanced upon him, his wand out and pointing at the small creature.

“As you have discovered, I have – with the help of the castle elves – enhanced the anti-apparition wards around my quarters to include elf magic as well as wizard. Once you appeared here, I activated them, and you will not be able to leave until I decide to release you.”

“No, no, no!” Dobby wailed. “Dobby must not stay! Dobby must return home before Master noticies!” He started to bang his head on the floor again, but a sharp word from Snape stopped him.

“Harry! Come here at once!” he called, never taking his eyes off the miserable house elf.

Harry ran in. “Da! What is it?”

“Come see what has been caught in the trap we laid with our little fiction,” Snape said, indicating the house elf, who promptly burst into tears at the sight of the boy.

“Ohhhhhh, Master Harry Potter Sir! Dobby is sorry for getting Master Harry Potter Sir into such trouble! But Master Harry Potter Sir would not leave the castle!” Dobby yanked at his own ears in a frenzy of remorse.

“Da, it’s that weird house elf I told you about,” Harry exclaimed, hurrying to his father’s side while being careful not to cross in front of Snape’s wand. “Dibby or Diddy or Dooby or something like that. He’s the one who threatened me!”

“Dobby is bad elf,” the little creature agreed mournfully, “but poor Master Harry Potter Sir must be sent away to be safe.”

“How’d you know?” Harry asked, regarding Snape with wide, worshipful eyes.

Snape fidgeted, uncomfortable with the admiration he saw there. “I knew you would hardly spend four hours helping make ingredients just to destroy them, but I could find no trace to explain how you were framed. I recalled what you had said about being threatened by a house elf before the term began, and on the off-chance that it was responsible for all of these tricks, I got the castle elves to teach me how to prevent elves from entering or leaving our quarters.

“When I realized the potion cupboard was the latest attempt to get you expelled, I decided to play along. I hoped that if I seemed angry enough to make a threat to send you away sound realistic, then whoever was doing it would be unable to resist one more trick. That was what the potion in my lab was for – to try to entice our mysterious adversary into trying once more, only this one would be in a time and place of my choosing. It worked, and here we are.”

“Wow!” Harry breathed in awe.

“And as for you, elf,” Snape began threateningly, raising his wand.

“Please, Master Potion Master Sir!” Dobby cried. “Please send Master Harry Potter Sir away from here! Very Bad Things is starting!”

Snape paused. “Does it have to do with the Dark Lord?” he demanded, but Dobby merely wailed and pounded his head against the floor.

“Stop! Stop!” Snape commanded, seeing Harry’s stricken face as he watched the elf punish himself. If it had been up to him, he would have enjoyed watching the little creature dash his brains out after all the trouble e had caused Harry. “So you are trying to protect Harry?” Dobby sniffled and nodded. “How did you learn about this danger?”

Dobby yanked his ears. “No! No! Can’t say! Can’t tell what Master plans!”

Snape’s mind worked busily. House elves were excitable little things, peculiar on their best day, but what drove them insane quicker than anything else was being unable to carry out their owner’s instructions. If this little elf belonged to a Dark household and had learned of a plot against Hogwarts, but then wanted to protect Harry from it, it would be torn between its duty to protect its master’s secrets and its desire to save Harry. That could well set up exactly the sort of conflict that would make an elf mad.

But which Dark household had such an odd little elf?

“How did you know Harry was at Hogwarts?” Snape demanded. “Or that I am a Potion Master?”

Dobby looked stricken and began to bite his own hand. “Can’t say! Can’t say!” he protested, the words muffled.

Snape took a closer look at the frantic elf. He couldn’t imagine that his professional qualifications were discussed in too many Death Eater households. At best he might be referred to as a Hogwarts professor, at worst as “Snape the traitor”, but he’d never socialized all that much with his fellow Death Eaters, and – “Malfoy. You belong to Lucius Malfoy.”

Suddenly it all made sense. Lucius and Narcissa would, thanks to Draco’s letters, surely comment to each other upon Potter’s presence at Hogwarts, and Malfoy was one of the few people Snape had at one time considered a friend. As such, Lucius was familiar with Snape’s academic credentials and probably referred to them not infrequently, being the name dropper that he was. Snape had visited the manor on more than one occasion and while most elves looked the same to him, he supposed that this one might look a bit familiar.

Dobby burst into tears, confirming his guess. “Dobby is a bad, bad elf! But Dobby only wants to keep Master Harry Potter Sir safe!”

“That is my job,” Snape informed the distraught elf. “You are to return to Malfoy Manor and say nothing of this. I am well aware of Lucius’ little plot,” he lied, “and I have no intention of allowing Harry to be harmed. I will protect the boy, and you are to leave him alone from this moment forward.”

Dobby wept and protested, still uncertain, but Snape was adamant. “Go now, or I will inform your master of your actions,” he threatened, waving his wand to lower the wards around his quarters.

Dobby whimpered in terror, but still delayed long enough to ask, “You is sure Master Harry Potter Sir will be safe? You promises to protect him?”

Snape rolled his eyes. “Yes! Now go! And don’t come back!”

Dobby finally popped away, and Harry relaxed with a gusty sigh of relief. “Merlin! What a weird little elf! D’you really think there’s something bad going on that Draco’s dad is planning?”

Snape snorted. “Surely you saw how demeted the creature was. You have nothing to worry about.” He eyed the boy in concern. Would he accept that? Was he still traumatized by the horrible things Snape had had to say earlier?

“Oh. Okay,” Harry agreed, not noticing that his guardian had dodged the question. “So… can we have tea now?”

##

Harry was easily distracted by a plate of sandwiches, then sent off to his dorm, but Snape’s peace of mind was not so easily reclaimed. He had known Lucius was going to try something – the man had warned him, after all – but it bothered Snape that Lucius had obviously set something in motion and Snape was still unaware of it. He had wondered if Malfoy had in fact been behind the tricks that seemed aimed at discrediting Harry, but now that Dobby had been revealed as the culprit, that meant that some other plan was silently unfolding.

That made Snape very, very nervous.

What was more, it was a distraction he could ill afford. He was already trying to come up with a plan to get rid of that idiot Fudge, and he had hoped Malfoy might at least remain neutral. Removing Fudge would be tricky at best, but if Malfoy actively opposed the change, it became more difficult by several orders of magnitude. Snape had hoped that he might be able to persuade Lucius to remain on the sidelines, and that might have worked if the other man had still been in a passive “wait and see” mode. But from Dobby’s words – and actions – it was clear that Lucius had put some scheme into play, and he was unlikely to resume the status of onlooker unless forced to do so.

But if Fudge were still in power when Malfoy’s plan was finally revealed, then it would be that much harder to counter Lucius… Was it better to remove Fudge as quickly as possible, even if that meant taking on Lucius at the same time? And how?

His own past made him extremely vulnerable; any hint of impropriety and there were plenty of Aurors and others in government who had been waiting ten years to see him locked up in Azkaban. But who else was there? He supposed he could call in the Marauders, but pranking a Muggle family was a lot different than targeting the Minister of Magic, and Snape had gone to a lot of trouble to reestablish Black as an upstanding member of society. The last thing he wanted was to squander Black’s status, and that didn’t even take into account that if Lupin’s part in such a scheme were discovered, the hysterical Wizarding public would probably – egged on by the idiot press – see it as a werewolf plot to destabilize the government. At the very least, it would mean an automatic death sentence for Lupin, and Snape had no desire to have to break yet another Marauder out of Azkaban.

In the end, he decided it was better to marshal his forces and do nothing in the short term. Without knowing anything of Malfoy’s plan, it would be foolish to expend resources on one campaign or another. Better to let things progress at their own pace while keeping a vigilant eye out. It also meant that he wouldn’t tip his hand to anyone who might be watching. Continuing on as if nothing had changed, while simultaneously knowing to be on one’s guard, was often an effective strategy in itself.

But that didn’t make it easy on the nerves.

Further increasing Snape’s stress was the fact that one of his Slytherin first years had begun acting oddly. Jones and some of the other prefects had noticed and tried to speak to the Parkinson girl, but she rebuffed all approaches. The prefects reported that there had been no real disagreements with her year mates nor signs of an unrequited crush – until she had started isolating herself, Parkinson had seemed wholly focused on Draco Malfoy, but now she treated him with the same distant politeness as she did the rest of the school.

Jones had interrogated Malfoy closely, suspecting that he might have said something unkind to the girl, but he had vehemently denied anything beyond his usual level of snottiness – a claim backed up by the other Slytherins. Jones might not have placed much faith in the testimony of Crabbe and Goyle, but the fact that Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville also backed up Draco’s claims made her tend to believe him. Even Pansy hadn’t offered an unkind word about Malfoy, which Jones would have expected had the girl’s moodiness been linked to the blond’s self-centeredness.

Snape had tried speaking to Parkinson, but he had met with a similar lack of success as his prefects. The child was withdrawn and ignored all overtures from her fellow students, yet didn’t fit the profile of a typical homesick first year. He’d offered Parkinson the opportunity to visit her parents over a weekend, a common enough solution when a firstie’s longing for home, parents, and pets (not necessarily in that order) began to interfere with their schoolwork, but the girl had politely refused. Not homesick then.

He’d owled her parents, trying to figure out if there was a problem at home that was disturbing her – a dying grandparent or domestic discord between her parents – but they’d denied it. The elder Parkinsons might be pureblood bigots and Death Eaters, but there was no denying that they also loved their daughter and were genuinely worried to hear of her troubles at school.

Snape had decided that if the child, who was looking progressively more peaky, hadn’t shown some improvement by next week, he would order her to Poppy. In addition to a thorough examination, Poppy might also be able to provide the girl with some womanly advice, on the off chance that this was all about – Snape shuddered – female problems.

In the meantime though, there were classes to teach, halls to patrol, and a certain black-haired menace to supervise. Harry’s ability to induce gut-churning terror with the most innocent of queries showed no signs of fading.

“Da? Do you ever hear funny voices?” the brat had asked calmly, as the two of them chopped billywigs one evening. Snape had made a point of keeping the boy close in the fortnight since the elf’s plot had been revealed. He wasn’t sure if Harry needed reassurance, but with Malfoy’s plot underway, he wanted to know where the brat was at all times.

Snape managed not to chop off his finger. “I beg your pardon?” he asked, his voice revealing none of his disquiet. “Funny voices?”

“Yeah, y’know – not funny ha-ha, but funny weird.”

“And what do these weird voices say?” he asked, his voice as level as he could make it. Given Harry’s egregious childhood, it would hardly be surprising that he might need the services of a mind-healer, though auditory hallucinations were an ominous first symptom.

Harry frowned a bit as he continued chopping. “Weird stuff. Y’know – like ‘blood’ or ‘kill’ or ‘die’…It sounds really mad about something.”

Snape’s mind worked frantically. Of course the boy would have a great deal of sublimated rage at his disgusting relatives. “Under what conditions are you hearing voices?”

Harry considered the question thoughtfully. “Well, it’s mostly at bedtime, if I’m really tired.”

Perhaps this was Harry’s way of expressing the anger, Snape thought. Or was a split personality developing? The good child who behaved himself and enjoyed classes during the day and the angry, abused, vengeful child finally feeling safe enough to come out in the dead of night? Should he speak to Poppy about this, or was it too far out of her area of expertise? Would St Mungo’s be the best choice? Perhaps somewhere abroad would be more expert in dealing with pediatric survivors of abuse?

“They’re worse when, erm, when I…” Harry trailed off, looking embarrassed.

“When what?” Snape pressed. When he had had a bad day at school, perhaps? When something happened to remind him of his treatment at the hands of those Muggles?

“Well, when I’m so tired that I forget to do those relaxation exercises you showed me,” Harry confessed. “I usually do ‘em in the morning and night, just like you said, but sometimes – like after Quidditch – I just fall asleep too quick.”

Snape did his best to hide his dismay. Of course the occlumency – which Harry thought of a “relaxation exercises” – would shore up a disintegrating mind, but it wouldn’t be able to hold off the inevitable for long. Harry clearly needed urgent medical assistance.

“I think we have done enough tonight,” he announced, needing to get the brat back to his Tower before he lost the ability to hide his true emotions. “As far as these ‘weird voices’ of yours go, if you make a greater effort to do your mental exercises, then they should cease to trouble you.” At least in the short run.

“Okay, Da,” Harry agreed cheerfully.

Once the boy had left, Snape passed a shaking hand over his face. How was he to break the news to Albus?