It seems that, like many things, life only lets you resolve one problem if it has another to immediately put in its place. This had become a regular occurrence in Harry’s life, but in spite of this, it never failed to surprise him when it did it again.

oooOOOooo

“Stop drooling on the pillow and wake up, Potter.”

Harry hastily reached up and swiped away the evidence, eyes still closed. “M’not drooling.”

“Hmm. Be that as it may, you aren’t waking up either.”

“Mm’awake... Salem!” Harry shot up in bed and curled his hand around the little snake that had just slithered onto the pillow. “Hey there, when’d he give you back?”

“Last night,” Salem hissed happily. “He gave me a baby mouse first. Niccce.”

“Urgh.” Harry wrinkled his nose in fascinated horror. “Alive?”

Salem shook his head mournfully. “No, dead.”

Harry snorted. “Well, if you hadn’t pissed off McGonagall, we might have been able to persuade her to catch you a few live ones.”

Salem flicked his tongue disdainfully. “’I’ pissed her off? It was you who...”

“Charming as this indecipherable conversation may be, we do have to be in the Great Hall for breakfast in no more fifteen minutes.”

Harry jumped and looked up at his father guiltily. He had completely forgotten that the man had been standing there all along. “Umm... sorry, sir. I’ll be right up.”

Snape gave him a stern look, but Harry could tell that he didn’t really mean it. “You’d better, Harry.”

Harry waited until Snape was almost through the door before opening his mouth and calling out, “Professor?”

Snape stopped. “Yes?”

Harry paused, and then grinned unrepentantly at his surprised father. “Thanks for letting me sleep in, Dad.”

There was an inarticulate snarl and the door slammed shut. Snickering, Harry scrambled out of bed and started looking for his clothes, letting Salem – who was still hissing in amusement – settle across the back of his neck. In truth, the laughter was more a form of relief that coming back to Hogwarts hadn’t made them lose their previous relationship they had built over the summer. Snape’s reactions to Harry displaying affection were quickly becoming notorious to the boy during the holidays.

“Not sssad anymore?” hissed a soft voice in his ear.

Harry smiled at Salem. “Not so much anymore. Snape helped, but I still missss him.”

Harry saw Salem’s small head bob from the corner of his eye as he hurried into the bathroom. “I misss Boy-in-Mirror too. He named me. He was niccce.”

Harry snorted, even as he felt a twinge at the memory of who had named his snake. He deliberately avoided looking in the mirror over the sink. “And I’m not? I’m so flattered, Salem.”

“Potter! Classes are not going to wait for you.”

“Oops, coming!” Splashing cold water on his face, Harry scrabbled on the side of the sink for his glasses, remembered he didn’t need them, and walked out into the living room to meet an impatient Snape. “Good morning, sir.”

His father gave him an incredibly sour look before holding out a schoolbag that looked remarkably like his. Feeling a bit nervous – after all, the man had been rather unpredictable lately – Harry walked over and lifted the bag out of Snape’s grasp.

“Uh... thanks. Is this mine?”

“Obviously. Your charming Head of House was kind enough to pass it through the Floo earlier this morning.” Forget inch thick, this morning Snape’s sarcasm was a foot thick. Harry supposed that McGonagall was the cause of his father’s less than stellar mood now. It was a pity – he had seemed fine when he had woken Harry up.

At least Harry wasn’t the one he was angry with this time.

“Err... so, did she spit any of those hairballs at you, sir?” Harry hedged. He was quite certain that his father had by now permanently corrupted the way he viewed McGonagall. In fact, he had absolutely no idea how he’d be able to keep a straight face in Transfiguration later on.

The corner of Snape’s mouth twitched. “Thankfully, no.” His expression seemed to soften slightly when he glanced at Harry, but he could have imagined it. A moment later, Snape turned and gestured to a now-familiar black box – within which Harry was sure, was the Inheritance book.

“As you can see, I have put it away,” Snape said firmly. “I would appreciate it if you do not take it out again without my permission. Mainly for the reasons I have already explained but also because most families do not show their children the inside of such books until they are of age. There are certain... sections, that are less than pleasant.”

Snape seemed to be looking at him oddly and Harry shifted uncomfortably, uncertain why he was suddenly the focus of such scrutiny. Unless he thinks that I found one of those sections when I was reading it? Tch, I barely managed to read a paragraph before he came through the door. And before then, I’ve only really looked at the family tree... “All right, I promise. Shall we go?”

Snape glanced away and gave a sharp nod before gesturing for Harry to precede him. And now that it came down to it, Harry wasn’t entirely certain that he did want to go outside... the way the majority of the school had treated him yesterday was surely something to be avoided at all costs, wasn’t it? He wished he could tell Snape about it, listen to whatever the man’s advice on the subject would be, but there was no doubt that he would tell him to put up and deal with it.

But would he? a small voice in his head questioned. He didn’t say that about Shadow...

Harry shook his head firmly. Don’t be ridiculous. You aren’t a child anymore; he’d expect you to be able to cope with a little thing like this. After all, you have many times before.

“Harry?”

Harry started, realising that Snape was looking at him oddly again, which of course was to be expected seeing as he hadn’t moved an inch.

“Is there something concerning you?” Snape’s voice sounded sincere, but Harry cringed at the idea of appearing weak before his father. Again.

He thought quickly. “I was just wondering if you should take Salem again. I’m not allowed to have him, after all...”

Snape shook his head, almost looking amused. “Keep him with you, but make sure he stays out of sight. I daresay neither of us needs a certain Transfiguration teacher coming after us. Now come along, your friends must be waiting.”

Yeah, right. They’re probably thinking of as many ways as they can to avoid me. Not Ron and Hermione, of course, but plenty of others will be...

Harry hastened toward the quarters’ entrance to Snape’s office, put his hand on the handle, mentally bracing himself to face the sneering student population, opened the door... and immediately took a large step back – also accidently knocking into his father – when he saw who was standing directly outside.

Neville, already visibly shivering stepped further behind Ron and Hermione, and all three looked up at Snape with such trepidation that Harry almost started laughing at the absurdity of it all.

“Uh... Hi, guys. Hi, Neville.” Harry felt his mouth beginning to stretch into a smile despite his best efforts.

Snape made a disapproving noise. “Wonderful though this little reunion may be, I would appreciate it if you got off my foot, Mr Potter,” he growled, grabbing Harry, pushing him to the side and striding off straight out through the open office door.

Harry was ready to bet money that none of his friends had noticed the man surreptitiously squeezing his shoulder as he did so.

Ron’s face was dark. “Listen, mate, I know you said you were fine, but say the word and we’ll go straight to Dumbledore and get you out of there!”

Harry let out a startled laugh. “Thanks, Ron, that’s good of you to say, but I’m fine. Really,” he stressed, seeing his friends’ dubious expressions. “He was just playing you. I mean, he’s not going to suddenly start being nice, is he? Can you imagine anyone taking him seriously then?”

“Actually...” Neville shuddered. “I think I would be too scared to even go to classes if that were the case.”

Harry considered. Neville did indeed have a point; the idea of Snape being as jovial Dumbledore on a good day sent chills down his spine. It just wasn’t in the man’s nature.

“True. Err... what you all doing down here anyway?”

“Oh, Harry!”

Harry looked over in time to see Hermione roll her eyes to heaven.

“The last thing you said to us was that you were going down to talk to Snape. Did you really expect us not to be worried when you didn’t come back?”

“Yeah,” Ron chipped in, “and the next thing we hear from McGonagall – who looked like she’d just swallowed a Filibuster, by the way – is that you’re spending the night down in the dungeons. What were we supposed to think? And it’s not as if we were able to sneak down after curfew to check if you were alright!”

“That didn’t stop Ron from trying though,” Hermione snapped, “and getting himself caught and receiving detention for a week!”

“Oh yeah?” Ron rounded on Hermione. “Well, what should we have done? Sit around like good, ‘ickle firsties while Harry was getting yelled at by Snape?”

“You were never a good, little first year, Ronald Weasley...”

Harry caught Neville’s eye and gestured at the door, even as he started edging past his two bickering best friends. Neville gave him a relieved grin and they slipped out of the office together, leaving the other two to their row. Harry idly wondered how long it would take before they noticed they were alone in Snape’s office.

“So, how bad was it at the Tower last night?” Harry asked lowly, quietly pleased that Neville, at least, had decided to ignore whose son Harry was.

“Pretty bad,” Neville whispered back – they were, after all, in Slytherin territory – as they started to ascend the dungeon staircase. “Dean and Seamus were sort-of OK seeing as they already knew you’d changed your appearance – and they know you fairly well anyway. But the younger years,” Neville shook his head in disbelief, “almost all of them were suddenly terrified of you... err...” Neville seemed to suddenly recall his own nervousness over the matter.

Harry smiled reassuringly, while trying not to trip up the stairs – he still hadn’t quite got the hang of his new body yet and stairs were always a trial. “S’OK, Neville. You have more reason than most not to like Snape.”

Neville grimaced, evidently remembering the Boggart. “Anyway, you do have some supporters there, but even they’re a bit uncertain.”

Harry nodded grimly. “Who are they? I take it the rest are against me.”

Neville held up his fingers and started ticking people off. “Colin Creevey – obviously – and his little brother, who’s just come to Hogwarts; Seamus, Dean, Ginny, the Quidditch team, a couple of the older years who are friends of the Quidditch team and, err, a few of Colin’s friends.”

Harry groaned loudly. “So most of the House hates me.”

“’Fraid so.” Neville looked very apologetic. “But don’t worry, I’ll stick with you. Ron and Hermione too, of course. Sorry there aren’t more: they just wouldn’t listen.”

Harry took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh as he climbed the last few steps to the Entrance Hall. “Not your fault. But, Neville, thanks for trying anyway, and for the support. I’m definitely going to need it.”

Neville gave a sympathetic smile before eyeing the doors leading to the Great Hall with trepidation. He stopped. “Listen, Harry... Snape didn’t give you too much of a hard time last night, did he? I wanted to go with Ron, but I didn’t want to get caught.”

“Seriously, it’s OK, Neville. Snape was fine...” Harry was cut off by hurrying footsteps running up the dungeon staircase behind them. Harry hid a grin. It looked like Ron and Hermione had finally worked out they had been left behind.

The first words Ron said as he gained the top of the stairs were, naturally, “What the bloody hell d’you do that for?” A couple of Ravenclaws coming down the Marble Staircase shot Ron an odd look, but the second they caught sight of Harry, their eyes widened and they hurried through the double doors leading to the Great Hall without a backward glance.

That can’t be good.

“Oh. Ah, listen, mate...”

“It’s OK, Ron. It’s not like this is any different from what happened in second year... You were saying?”

Ron looked slightly puzzled for a moment before rallying. “Yeah! What were you thinking? Me ‘n Hermione looked up and you’d just vanished and there were all these jars staring at us-”

“Jars don’t stare, Ronald!”

“-and so I thought it was some weird spell that Snape had cast,” Ron continued, paying no attention to Hermione, “that made you disappear – wouldn’t put it past the greasy git – so I grabbed Hermione and ran for it. Had to shut the door on the way out, ‘cos there’s no way of knowing what’s in there, and it locked itself behind us. If that isn’t proof of Dark magic, I don’t know what is!”

“Oh, and it couldn’t have been something like a self-locking charm that Snape put there so he wouldn’t have students sneaking into his office or quarters, could it?”

Ron was brought up short by that. Harry was almost disappointed – he had been enjoying Ron’s wild tale.

“Well, you were running just as fast as I was-”

“Only because-”

“Oh, give it a rest, you two.” Harry was all for being amused by their bickering, but now was not the time and the longer he put off entering the Great Hall, the more nervous he was becoming. “I want to get breakfast sometime this morning and Snape wouldn’t be too happy to hear you’d kept me from it.”

Both Ron and Hermione looked aghast.

“C’mon, guys.” He grinned at them and strode towards the Great Hall, wishing he didn’t want to fall back and hide behind them. The doors opened easily at his touch and the loud chatter echoing around the Hall was somewhat comforting.

Then, a sudden a whisper of, “There! There he is!” hissed around the tables and one by one they fell quiet, all of their occupants turning to stare at the four people standing in the entrance. Harry froze, his legs turning to jelly as he tried to stare down the whole of the Hogwarts’ population. A completely silent population.

He could hear Hermione hiss, “Harry!” in his ear repeatedly as she tried to tug him towards the Gryffindor table and Salem coiling tighter around his wrist, but he felt oddly detached as the adrenaline rose in him. But where could he hide? Who could he fight? Hogwarts was his home, and those inside his family.

Eyes flicking from face to stony face, he opened his mouth to say something, anything, and stayed completely silent.

A loud clunk echoed throughout the Hall, causing many to jump and look wildly around for the noise. Then, slowly, imposingly, a huge porridge tureen on the staff table tipped over and fell to the floor, the metallic sound as it moved slowly rising to a clattering crescendo that made Harry want to slam his hands over his ears to drown out the noise. As the last few ringing tones sounded throughout the room, the Hall seemed even quieter than it had been before, and everyone stared agape up at the staff table and the large mess on the floor.

“Whoops!” Dumbledore smiled cheerfully around at everyone in the Hall. “My hand must have slipped. How clumsy of me!”

A startled laugh broke out at the Hufflepuff table, followed closely by another from the Ravenclaws. Under cover of the shared mirth, Harry and his friends slipped to a section of the Gryffindor table only occupied by Ginny and the twins. Harry snatched several pieces of toast, shoved them in a napkin and started to leave again, only to be stopped by a hand on his arm which forced him back into his seat.

“Leaving us so soon, Harry?” Fred-or-George grinned.

“Alas! We are mortally offended by your callous disregard!” the other twin said, raising one hand in mock woe while cheerfully munching on forkful of scrambled eggs.

Harry rolled his eyes, but grinned despite himself. “Hey, guys.”

“So, tell us,” Fred/George muttered as the noise level in the Hall started to go down again, “are you really Snape’s spawn?”

Harry felt his eyebrows climb his forehead. Spawn? “Er, yeah. I guess I am.”

“Wicked!” the other hissed before lowering his voice even further, “Naturally, you’ll be included in the wards to Snape’s stores-”

“-and because we’ve been such good friends-” Fred/George picked up.

“Given you the Marauders Map, for example,” the second added in helpfully.

“-you’ll of course be completely OK with nicking a couple of ingredients for your old pals, Fred’n’George,” Fred – Harry’d decided – concluded.

Harry, however, was prepared for this. “No offence, but no bloody way,” he said, calmly munching on the toast he’d stored. “No hard feelings, right?”

George heaved a sigh. “It was worth a go.”

“I suppose we’ll just have to find our own way in... again!” Fred finished, stealing Harry’s toast with one hand and ruffling Harry’s hair with the other as he stood to leave with George. “See ya, Harry.”

Harry snorted and gathered his books just as the first few post owls started winging their way into the Great Hall, ignoring the glares from the other Gryffindors. “I’m going too. See you in Herbology, yeah?”

Hermione gave him a worried look, but Neville got up without another word and followed him out, allowing the other two to finish their breakfast.

They walked in silence, which was just fine with Harry; his head was buzzing with thoughts about all that had happened over the past few days and he almost found himself wishing for silence and peace of the Manor. Snape had never demanded anything more than Harry’s presence at meals and for him to stay out of Snape’s space. The sudden and constant demands of school once again was making it hard to adjust, and trying to fit Snape-from-the-Manor and Snape-from-school together was enough to give anyone a headache.

Classes passed slowly but the lectures were a bit of blur. Harry was too busy trying to ignore the few glares attempting to dig holes in the back of his skull. Conversely, none of Harry’s friends wanted to leave him alone, somehow managing to have at least one of them at his side at all times. It was probably just as well. A quite a few of the older years looked like they wanted cause trouble, but Harry couldn’t help but feel more than a little stifled.

In fact, it wasn’t until just before the last class of the day – Divination for Harry and Ron – that Harry finally managed to get some space by pretending that he needed to go to the bathroom.

Ducking out of sight down a corridor, Harry breathed a deep sigh of relief and shifted his bag to the other shoulder, sorely tempted to miss out on going to the class all together.

I wonder what ‘Father’ would say about that. But it’s not as if it’s a particularly important subject anyway.

Slowly walking down the corridor towards the bathroom – it wouldn’t do for Hermione to double back and find him loitering – Harry glanced around and realised he wasn’t as alone as he had first thought.

A girl was curled tightly around herself on one of the large window seats, and now that Harry was paying attention, he could hear her soft sobbing filling the corridor. Stepping closer, Harry suddenly realised that she was a girl from his own year – Susan, Susan Bones. Feeling awkward that she hadn’t yet heard his approach, he took a few more paces forward and stopped a couple of feet away.

“Susan?”

The crying girl didn’t look up.

“Susan, what’s the matter?” Harry tentatively reached out and touched his hand to her shoulder.

She jerked back and looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes. “Oh. It’s you,” she sniffed, turning her face away to look back out the window again.

Harry sighed. It had been like this all day. Ever since the school had finally put two and two together about Harry being both Snape’s son and Harry Potter, it had been worse than second year. People had actually started turning and walking the opposite way down any corridor Harry was in. It was frustrating, annoying and maddening, and there was absolutely nothing Harry could do about it.

He didn’t want to go to his father about it – that would appear weak and Harry had had quite enough of disappointing Snape, thank you very much. Besides, he still wasn’t entirely sure the man wouldn’t just tell him to get on and deal with it. Despite Snape’s revised punishment and apology, Harry was still feeling a little jumpy around the man.

Most of the rest of the staff were indifferent to Harry, some even going so far as to give him a few cold glances of their own, so it was not as if they would listen to him. Only the new Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor seemed to be unaffected by Harry’s change in status, though Harry had caught her squinting at him with interest a couple of times through her oval glasses.

However he wasn’t about to talk to her – he barely knew anything about her apart from the fact that she was quiet, knew what she was talking about and had spent two years in Bulgaria after attending Hogwarts herself.

And, well, this was hardly the kind of thing Harry could go to the Headmaster about, especially as Snape had said that the old man was leading the war against Voldemort. So Harry was prepared to grin and bear it.

“Yes, me,” he said firmly. “I was just wondering why you were upset and if there was anything I could do to help?”

“Oh.” Susan bit her lip and refused to look at him. “Thanks, Harry, but, but...” She looked down and whispered to her knees, “There’s nothing you can do.”

“I can listen.” Harry sat down on the window ledge beside her, wondering if she would find an excuse to get up and leave.

She didn’t.

“It’s nothing important,” Susan mumbled, pulling her knees closer. “It’s just... I found out that Death Eaters have probably kidnapped my aunt last night. I was a bit upset...”

Death Eaters... Voldemort’s followers. Harry felt a spike of anger, but quickly covered it by patting Susan’s hand, wondering if his father felt this awkward while comforting him.

“It is important, Susan. A member of your family’s just disappeared, of course you’re going to be upset. Do you... know what happened?”

Susan nodded, scrubbing tear tracks off her face. “Yeah. They attacked the Ministry again – said in the Prophet this morning – only this time with spell that creates fire demons, s’called Fiendfyre... They don’t burn out until whoever conjured them wishes it – they attack anyone in their path,” she added, seeing Harry’s confusion. “Aunt Amelia didn’t stand a chance,” she whispered softly, sadly. “She’s either been kidnapped or burned to nothing by now.”

She tugged an old handkerchief from her pocket and scrubbed at her face. “The Prophet said that this time everyone’s abandoned the Ministry for good. They’ve had enough of the constant attacks, so they’ve fled.” Susan shivered and said in a very hushed tone, “I hope You-Know-Who doesn’t use it for a base or anything. There are thousands of records of people, there. They would all know our weaknesses in two seconds flat.”

That’s entirely possible, Harry thought grimly, and it sounds just like the kind of thing Voldemort would like to do... And now I know why everyone’s been so venomous to me today. They need someone to take it out on and I’m the perfect target! Some of them will probably even be stupid enough to blame me for it all. I hope it doesn’t get any worse...

Out loud he said, “Well, let’s just hope the last people to leave there had the sense to destroy as many of the documents as they could. The only thing I think you should worry about doing now is asking Professor Sprout if you can have the day off classes. You know she’ll say yes.”

Susan slowly slipped of the window ledge and stood herself on shaky legs. “Yeah, you’re probably right. Thanks, Harry.”

She tottered away and Harry suppressed a sigh, thinking that once she was dealing with her grief better, he hoped she would remember that she hadn’t minded talking to the pariah of the school. He felt selfish and guilty almost immediately and cursed himself for thinking such things.

He stood up and started to unconsciously wander towards Gryffindor Tower, knowing there was no way he could concentrate on something as mundane as Divination now.

The Ministry – God!

Harry was gripped with the sudden urge to do something, tell someone, but doubtless everyone who had read the Daily Prophet already knew. Besides, what could anyone do? The war had started again and Harry was nowhere near ready.

Worrying about what the school thinks of me, indeed! Wallowing in missing someone who was never even real in the first place! I should have been thinking about all the people that were fighting and dying while Voldemort digs his claws even deeper into our world!

Resisting the urge to punch a wall again, Harry cast his eyes about for something to distract himself with. They fell on the bathroom door he had just been passing and a thought began forming in his head that he had previously just pushed aside, simply because it had seemed ridiculous back then...

If Susan can be prepared to move on only a few hours after losing her Aunt...

Taking a deep breath, Harry shoved the door open and strode straight over to one of the mirrors, staring at his own, pale reflection that was so familiar it made his stomach twist.

“Shadow?” Harry closed his eyes for a second and drew a shaky breath. When he opened them again, his reflection hadn’t changed. “Listen, Shadow. I’m really, really sorry. I wanted to remember you for as long as possible – grieve you properly, ‘cos even though you weren’t real to Dumbledore or Snape, you were always real to me.”

Another shaky breath and he swallowed around the hot, tightness that was threatening to close up his throat. “Always, y’hear me? But I can’t do it any longer, the world is changing and I need to change with it. I have to be strong and I have to be ready to fight Voldemort if... when he comes for me again. You understand that, I know you would have. And I know you’d forgive me as well for doing this. I’m sorry. I miss you.”

Scowling fiercely against the tears that threatened to fall, Harry turned and left the empty bathroom.