Divergence by JAWorley

Days passed and Harry was surprised that Professor Quirril was still to be seen in the halls or teaching classes. There were only two weeks left until summer vacation and the school year was slipping away, and Harry and his friends had expected the man to be canned or carted off to Azkaban. When it didn't happen, they were confused.

"Why haven't they canned him yet?" Ron asked at breakfast on Monday morning as he glared up at the head table where Quirril laughed at something McGonagall had said.

"Maybe we got it wrong," Hermione said. "If he was the attacker they wouldn't let him stay here."

Fred and George walked over and took a seat next to them. "They're not going to get rid of him," George said.

"What?"

"Think about it. We haven't shown them the map and they have no proof it's him. If they ask him, he can just deny it."

"So what do we do then?" Ron asked. "Eventually he's going to go after the stone and find out it's missing. Then he's going to be angry and you know he'll come after Harry."

"We need to figure out how he's going invisible," Hermione said. "Harry, Professor Snape always tries to summon a cloak, right? So they must believe it's a cloak. We have to figure out how he's getting it to stick to him, and figure out how to de'cloak him the next time you're attacked."

"He could be using a sticking charm," Fred said.

"That can't be all." Harry closed his eyes and thought back to the most recent attacks. "It's strange. I'm sure Professor Snape has hit him at least twice and knocked him over, but when he feels around the hall with his hands or feet, there's no one there. But other times, they've fought and Quirril has been solid enough to hit. And his hands are solid enough to grab me by the foot and drag me away."

Fred and George looked at each other. "Like a poltergeist," George said.

"Like Peeves?" Hermione raised her brows, surprised. "He's always solid."

"Because he wants to be," Ron said, nodding his head. "Poltergeists can shift so they're like ghosts. But Quirril isn't a poltergeist. He's a man."

"A man who drinks unicorn blood in the forest," Harry said. They had spent some time reading about unicorn blood in the library, but the books hadn't said anything about turning people into poltergeists.

"It could have had some strange effects," Hermione said, "but I don't think this is it. There's something else going on here."

They finished breakfast and went to classes, and met back at the table again for lunch.

"We have a possible answer," Fred said excitedly, and Harry, Ron and Hermione listened expectantly. "We were in Defense with Quirril."

George interrupted him to say, "The git," but then let Fred finish.

"Today we were learning about boggarts. Remember that one aunt Tilly had in her basement Ron?"

Ron shuddered. "Don't remind me. I couldn't sleep for weeks."

"A boggart?" Hermione asked.

"It's a phantom creature that prays on people's fears," George said. He pulled out their defense text and opened it to the very last chapter and slid it across the table to Hermione, who preferred to read the information rather than hear it second hand. George continued on for Harry and Ron's benefits though.

"Whatever you fear when you run into a boggart, it turns into. And Boggarts can turn into anything; mist, a ghost, a person... And the three of you, and probably Professor Snape have been afraid of an invisible attacker, right? What if there's a boggart in the castle somewhere and you keep running into it? Sometimes it's really Quirril attacking you, and other times it's the boggart."

Hermione looked up, shocked, and reached back to touch her hair. "Harry- the way it pulled my hair and then only a moment later was behind you and Ron trying to curse you... Quirril couldn't have moved that fast."

"But boggarts don't move around corridors usually," Ron said. "Like the one in the basement. They like dark spaces."

"You've been attacked at night before though, right?" George asked. They nodded.

"Still," Ron said. "Mum told me they don't come out unless they've got a reason. They don't normally attack people or try to start things up."

"He must be setting it loose then," Hermione said, done reading the text book now. "It says you can vanish them with the Riddikulous spell, but that they'll also stop bothering you as soon as you aren't afraid anymore. Sometimes Professor Snape shows up and the attack stops."

"Because I'm not afraid when he comes running around the corner," Harry said, feeling like this was all a plausible explanation.

"A boggart," Hermione said. "It gives him an alibi, if Harry's being attacked while Quirril is somewhere with an adult or students. It's brilliant. We need to figure out how to tell if it's the boggart or Quirril though. I don't want to be running around shouting Riddikulous at Quirril when he's attacking Harry."

"The dagger."

They alll looked at Harry.

"Quirril had a silver dagger. He dropped it once and Professor Snape took it. But we figured out that sometimes it's a silver dagger with two blue jewels in the handle. That must be the boggart. The times when I've seen a real boot under the cloak or made him mad and got him to throw my wand back down to me, there was no dagger. Just fists and feet and spells."

"We didn't have a boggart in class to practice the spell on," George said, "but maybe we can find one in an attic or something to practice on. Then we can teach you the spell tonight. At least that should help stop some of the attacks."

"And Quirril?" Ron asked.

"We'll talk about it more after classes."

"But we're going to class with him right after lunch," Hermione said.

"Just keep your head down," Fred advised, and they stood up to go to their own classes.

* * *

It wasn't until after curfew that Fred and George reappeared with a cardboard box that shook menacingly. It was eleven and the common room had cleared out somewhat. They beckoned for Harry and his friends to follow and lead them into the boys loo.

"I can't go in there," Hermione said.

"We'll lock the door Hermione," Fred teased. "You won't see anything you shouldn't."

With a huff she followed them in and they warded the door shut.

"It's in there isn't it?" Ron said, fidgeting.

"What's it going to turn into?" Harry asked him.

George grinned. "Don't scream like little girls. Except you Hermione." She glared at him and George continued, "It's going to turn into a five foot tall spider if it faces Ron."

Harry looked and noted that Ron was growing paler by the second.

"And we figure it's going to turn into the attacker for you Harry. It turns to a werewolf for George and a rabbid rabbit for me."

Hermione put her hand up over her mouth then to cover a giggle. "It's ok Fred said. I own my fears. And you would be scared of rabbits too if one had tried to bite your toes off in the garden after getting into one of mum's potions."

"We practiced in the attic," said George. "We've got it down, so it's just down to teaching you three." They explained how to do the spell and what to think, and then let Hermione face the box as they opened it and stepped away to let the Boggart come out. It was Professor McGonagall. She had a stern look on her face and a stack of papers with Hermione's name on them. They were covered in red ink and had a large D written at the top. D for dreadful. Hermione was able to banish the boggart back into the box with surprising ease though, and then it was Ron's turn. Ron gulped several times after the box was opened and was speechless for a full ten seconds as the spider backed him up into a stall. Ron slammed the door, and then from underneath the door stuck his wand out and shouted, "Riddikulous!" After a moment he hesitantly opened the door and found that the spider was neon pink with a ribbon tied to each legg. It's eyes all had patches and it's teeth had been replaced with dentures.

When it came to Harry's turn, the boggart wasted no time turning invisible and knocking Harry to the ground. Harry was ready though. He rolled away and shouted the spell, and the boggart turned visible and blue, and tripped on the fake invisibilty cloak, falling flat on it's face.

"You've got it," Fred said. "Not bad for a bunch of first years."

"Ok," Harry said, standing up and wondering when his father would come bursting in on them. "So we've got the boggart covered. What about Quirril? We've got no evidence against him."

"It would help if he wasn't invisble anymore," Hermione said, inspired by the boggart having tripped on the cloak.

"We could take the cloak from him. Imagine if you could go around invisible Harry. We could catch him at his own game."

"If we could get it, I could wear it, but I'm no match for an adult. He kills unicorns and drinks their blood. Imagine what he'd do to me!"

They couldn't think of a solution to their problem, so they turned instead to discussion of how to get the cloak, and before they left the bathroom twenty minutes later, had decided. Tomorrow Fred and George would find a way to search his desk and office, and if it wasn't there they'd use the map to figure out a way to get into his quarters.

* * *

"We have detention tonight," Fred said, "and we didn't find the cloak."

"What did you do?"

"It was an act of brilliance really," George boasted. "We stuck all the students to their chairs. Then we set his desk on fire. While he was dancing around I went to his office through the door in the back of the classroom and searched through all the drawers and cabinets. It wasn't there."

"And I stayed and watched him trying to get the desk put out. He wasn't worried about anything inside. The good thing is he was so angry he decided to handle our detentions himself. We'll be with him from seven to eight tonight. Maybe even longer."

"How is that good?" Ron asked.

"You've got to learn to think like us little brother." George grinned. "He'll be occupied, and we'll leave you the map. You can go to his quarters and look."

Hermione looked worried, but gave a nod. It wasn't long before their plan started to fall apart however. After dinner they were escorted back to Gryffindor by Professor McGonagall, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione slipped out of line and hid in a secret passageway on the first floor. Quirrils quarters, according to the map, weren't far from the Defense classroom and the teacher's lounge. This created a problem as they found out, becuase they had to pass the teacher's lounge to get there.

"If we get split up, the plan has to be for one of us to get to the quarters," Harry said as they stood in a nook, peeking down the hallway at the closed teacher's lounge door.

"This is a bad plan," Hermione said.

"But it makes sense. We can't each go at the same time. What if the door opens to the lounge. Then we'll all be caught. We won't get another chance at this. Fred and George can't guarantee they'll get him to give them detention again. "So we go one at a time. If anything else happens, someone has to go to his quarters." They'd discussed how to search the quarters at dinner. They didn't want Quirril to know they'd been there, so they couldn't just ransack the place.

"I'll go," Ron said. He stepped out from the nook and walked down the corridor, and as bad luck would have it, the door opened and Professor McGonagall came out. She scolded him and lead him away for a detention of his own.

"There are still teachers in there," Hermione said nervously. "At least one of us should try going the long way around."

Harry nodded. "You wait five minutes, and then go. I'll go around the long way and hopefully we'll meet each other there. If you get the cloak, get back to the common room."

Hermione held out her hand to stop him though, and said, "You realize we could get expelled for this? For being in a teacher's quarters and looking through their things?"

"We already stole the sorcerers stone Hermione," Harry said seriously. "We've already broken enough rules to get expelled."

She closed her eyes, like she was trying not to think about it, and said, "Ok. Five minutes."

He left here there in the shadowed nook and crept away towards the Charms corridor so he could begin to make his way back around to the other side of the first floor. Knowing Quirril was in detention with the twins, Harry felt complacent as he made his way through the dimly lit castle, and soon paid the price as his feet were kicked out from under him and his head slammed into the stone floor. His wand rolled away to where he couldn't reach it, and he cursed silenty at the pain that had blossomed into his head as a shock of white light inside his own eyes blinded him for a moment.

"It's you," Harry said, like he had come up against an old nemesis, or like he had suddenly come across Draco Malfoy. There was no sound other than his own breathing though as the boggart produced a dagger with two blue jewels. A dark form hurtled out of the darkness down the hall though and tackled him. The dagger clattered to the floor and then disappeared, as though it had never been there at all. His father must have been in the staff room in the other hall when the boggart had knocked him over if he got there so quickly, Harry thought. Head pounding, he crawled to his wand and imagined the boggart turning into a pink squaling pig, and shouted, "Riddikulous!" The spell shot out of his wand, past his father's head, and hit the invisible boggart. Where Snape had had his hands around the boggarts throat, he found himself holding a baby pig around the middle. Harry laughed, despite the pain in his head and lay back on the floor. The pig popped out of existance, and his father turned to him.

"A boggart?" he asked. "You are not supposed to learn about those until your third year."

"Fred and George taught us," Harry said, wishing his head didn't hurt so badly. His father helped him to his feet, and his vision went black for five or six seconds from the sudden change in position.

"You are injured."

Harry ignored him. "We figured out it was a boggart half the time. Quirril is setting it loose on us so he can have an alibi. He's got Fred and George in detention tonight. I should have thought about him letting it loose during detentions."

"You are children. You are not meant to deal with such things or be discussing them."

"Well we have to!" Harry said, feeling indignation and exasperation at the same time. "I told you it was him but he hasn't been fired yet!"

"Did it not occur to you that we have a plan or have laid traps to catch him in the act, so that he can be sent to Azkaban?"

Well, no actually. It hadn't occured to him.

"Why were you out? I know where Miss Granger is. Where is Mr. Weasley?"

"You know where she is?"

"As I was running out of the staff room, she was racing past me in the other direction. I did not have time to stop her. I assumed she was running to find help for you."

"Ron is in detention. Hermione is-"

"Yes?"

He looked up at his father and suddenly felt a renewed sense of trust and awe. His father hadn't just let the issue of Quirril drop. He had been planning with the other staff to catch him.

"She's going to search Quirril's quarters for the invisibilty cloak. We thought if we could get it, he'd have no way to attack me anymore from underneath it and he couldn't use it to sneak up to the third floor to get the stone."

"Yet another thing you have no business worrying about." He could tell his father seemed irritated and even a touch angry. He took hold of Harry's upper arm and lead him away, back towards the staff room.

"Where are we going?"

"To get the cloak. I assume you have reason for searching his quarters?"

"Fred and George searched his office and classroom."

Severus sighed and with his free hand reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose.

"We just wanted to use the cloak to turn things around on him."

"When this is over, we are going to have a long talk. You are far too involved in the problems of adults. You are not invincible."

Harry stopped walking, causing his father to stop as well since he still had hold of his arm, and looked up at him. "I know," Harry said. Currently his headache was reminding him of it with every step. "I'm just not used to anyone being there to help."

His father's expression softened a little, and they continued walking. They found Hermione inside Quirril's quarters, frantically searching under the large mattress. She had made a mess of things in her haste to complete her task. Upon seeing her Potions Professor, she looked up, horror in her eyes, and Harry had a feeling her boggart form would change if she ever came up against one again.

"It will be hidden in an unlikely place," Severus said. He let go of Harry's arm, and Harry collapsed into a desk chair. Hermione watched, stunned, as Snape moved forward and began searching through wooden boxes and ceramic jars with lids on one of the bookshelves.

"We don't have much time," he said to get her moving again, and the statement had the desired effect. She jumped and began searching again. Almost as soon as she had, she pulled out a long, silky silver cloak.

"This- is this it?"

Snape turned and Harry looked up. He walked over and took it gently and ran his fingers over the fabric. "I believe it is." Throwing it over himself, he suddenly turned invisible from the shoulders down.

Harry grinned. He had a feeling that all of Quirril's best laid plans would begin to crumble soon, just as their plan for that evening had. The difference was, their evening hadn't turned out so bad. For Quirril, he hoped things would end in Azkaban for him.

Severus folded the cloak up and then used his wand to set the quarters in order again, and ushered the two Gryffindors out. Then he lead them down the hall to McGonagall's office, and deposited them both into detention with Ron. They were surprised and without a word to Harry, Severus said to Minerva, "After their detention is complete, get Harry to the Hospital Wing. He probably has a concussion."

"Shouldn't he go now Severus?"

He turned to Harry and gave him a meaningful look. "Let his headache remind him for a while not to meddle." And then he was gone, though Harry didn't know to where.

* * *

The hour was late and all the lanterns in the corridors had gone out. The castle's inhabitants were in bed, dreaming, that is, all except one, who hurried up the stairs to the the forbidden corridor, looking over his shoulder as he went. He carefully approached the locked door at the end, a flute in his hand. Tonight was the night he would set his master free, and be rewarded with riches beyond his wildest dreams.

Withdrawing his wand to unlock the door, he stiffened at the sound of a shoe scuffing the flagged stone floor somewhere behind him. Spinning, he found himself alone, and narrowed his eyes.

"Lumos."

There was no one there. "I'm going to kill that mangy cat before I leave," he muttered to himself, and then returned his attention to the door. He never got a chance to cast the unlocking spell however, because his feet had suddenly been knocked out from underneath him, and he was lying on the ground. Unlike the brat he'd frequently scared that year, he kept hold of his wand and cursed under his breath.

"Bloody boggart! I don't have time for this!"

He waved the wand and shouted, "Riddikulous!" but the boggart never materialized, and it didn't occur to him until long moments later when a black boot came out of nowhere and stomped down on his stomach, that he wasn't afraid of an invisible attacker, and the boggart wouldn't take that form for him.

"Expelliarumus!" he shouted, but nothing happened, and the wand was wrenched free from his grasp and then snapped in half before being thrown down the hall, where the pieces clattered on the stone floor.

"No!" he shouted. "You won't do this to me!" But the cloaked figure (how had they gotten his cloak!?) was kicking him and punching him. He tried to reach up to rip the cloak off of his assailant, but he couldn't find it. Something solid hit him in the face and when he was sufficiently stunned, moved to his feet and lifted them up, dragging him towards the stairs.

"No," he mumbled. "This isn't happening." But it was, and he was dragged to the very edge of the stairs. He could feel a boot pressing on his side, ready to roll him down the long stairwell, and he scrambled to grab on to anything, hoping for the attacker's feet. If he could grab the attacker's legs, he couldn't be thrown down the stairs.

"It's over," a silky voice said, and he froze.

"S- Severus? Is- is th that you? H- help me!"

And then the voice was right next to his ear. "I can't help you," he whispered. "I'm not here. I'm only a ghost."

The screams that followed echoed around the halls and all the way down to the Entrance Hall, but no one heard. And as the man tumbled down the stairs, the demon that was Voldemort released his hold and flew in a billow black smoke out of the back of the man's head and out a castle window, shattering it as he disappeared into the night. Quirril lay in a heap at the bottom of the stairs, moaning, which is where the Headmaster and Severus 'found' him minutes later, the cloak lying beside him in a heap.

"It seems we have found our attacker," Albus said. "My, what has posessed you to do such a thing? And to steal the sorcerers stone no less?"

"Stone? It's gone? I haven't taken it!" Quirril insisted.

"Yet here you are with the cloak, and the stone has been missing for over a week."

"It was those kids! They stole it! I'm telling you they stole it!" Words he was still muttering when aurors came to take him away to the Ministry an hour later.

"He did not take the stone," Albus said, "and Tom Riddle is gone, unable to hold or use the stone in his non-corporeal form. Now the only mystery left is, who does have it?"

Severus had a vague idea, though he had no idea how they would have gotten it.

"I will do my best to have the answer for you in the morning," he said, and walked away, hoping to get a few hours of sleep in the last remaining hours of the early morning.

People were talking the next morning. Quirril was gone, and several people had heard something mysterious 'howling' in the dead of night. The rumor was that there was some sort of beast and he had died fighting it. Slytherin had their Sickles and Knuts on a werewolf, and Hufflepuffs on a Vampire. Only a few students really knew, and they were sitting at Gryffindor table feeling rather amused at the wild speculation floating around the hall.

"You will follow me," Professor McGonagall said, coming up behind Harry. When he got up, she turned back and looked at his friends and said, "All of you." Exchanging uneasy glances, Ron, Hermione, and the twins got up and followed, and with so many eyes in the Great Hall on them, the rumors began to expand. Maybe they had been involved some how in slaying the Werewolf, or was it a troll, or perhaps a mermaid who had sprouted legs and come into the castle to exact vengence on someone?

The five Gryffindors expected to be lead to the Headmaster's office, but were surprised to be taken into Gryffindor tower. "Professor?" Hermione asked. Harry could sense that she was afraid they were going to be told to pack their bags because they were being expelled. Truth be told, he was afraid of the same thing. In the last nine months he'd come to think of this place as home, and he was certain his father would cut ties with him if he was kicked out and got his wand snapped in half.

"You are here to help us solve a riddle," came the Headmaster's voice. They turned and found him and Severus coming down the steps from the boy's dormitory.

"A riddle?" Fred hazarded, and the Headmaster smiled, making them all relax slightly.

"Some of the gaps in this mystery have been told to me by Professor Snape. The boggart, the cloak, detentions... yet one piece is still unsolved. You see, when we captured Professor Quirril last night and the aurors took him away, he insisted he hadn't taken the Sorcerer's stone, but the stone as we know it, has vanished. More than a week ago in fact. That is what we are here to solve."

"Wow!" said George, and Harry could hear the nervousness in his voice. He and Fred had never been in dire enough trouble to warrant the Headmaster getting involved. "There's a Sorcerer's stone somewhere in the castle?"

"I don't know," Dumbledore said. "Is there?"

Harry and his friends tried not to exchange uneasy glances, becuase they knew it would give them away, but they couldn't help their fidgeting.

"If someone took it," Harry hedged, "but didn't want to, would they get expelled or sent to Azkaban?"

Before the Headmaster could answer, Ron jumped in with his own clarification and said, "What if someone took it to hide it from someone they knew was going to try to steal it?"

"One would wonder," Dumbledore said, smile not faltering, "how a person would take such a valuable item when so many protections were placed around it."

"Yeah," Ron said with a nervous laugh as he scratched the back of his head, "one might wonder that."

Severus gave Harry a piercing glare and looking at the ground, Harry said, "It was easy to get the stone. I did it. I just wanted to keep it safe. I hid it. They had nothing to do with it."

"HEY!" shouted Fred and George at the same time.

"Part of the deal-"

"was we get some of the credit!"

"Ah, now the truth surfaces," the Headmaster said, hands behind his back. "Where is the stone?"

"Upstairs," Harry said. "In my trunk."

"And you did not think that the protections several accomplished professors could put on it were better than hiding it in the trunk at the foot of your bed?" Severus snapped, irritated, and Harry shrank back a little.

"If we could get through them," Hermione said, trying to defend her friend, "then Quirril could. He broke into the vault at Gringotts too, past all their security measures. We just thought it would be better hidden in an unlikely location."

"Like the trunk of the person the thief has been terrorizing?" Snape sounded incredulous, and feeling worse by the minute, Harry said, "I was going to take it away from the castle and dump it with some other rocks somewhere." His father snorted though and McGonagall, who had been quiet through all this, had her lips pursed and her arms crossed.

"Show us," Albus said. The three professors followed Harry up the stairs and he opened his trunk and undid the sticking charm.

"We put a sticking charm on the stone, and then one on the trunk so it couldn't be called by magic. And we stuck this dirt to it from the Devil's Snare to disguise it. We thought if we stuck it to the ground someplace far away and burried it, he'd never find it."

"An admirable plan," Albus said. "Unfortunately every time it rained the rain would seep down to the stone, turn into the elixer of life, and then get into the water supply. At some point it would reach the news that people in a select area were living to be over a hundred years old, and wizards from across the nation would turn up to search for it, as the stones do sometimes occur in nature.

Harry sighed. "I'm sorry."

"Do not be. You have been the catalyst for the capture of the thief and your own assailant."

His father didn't look in so forgiving a mood though as they went back down to the common room, where Harry's friends still waited anxiously.

"I think," said Dumbledore, "that I shall have to subtract fifty points from all of you for your rule breaking." Their shoulders fell, especially Fred and George's. That would cut their house points in half. "I shall also however, have to award you each 75 points for bravery, cleverness, and the pursuit of truth."

The twins high fived each other as Ron tried to do the math in his head. His eyes lit up when he realized that was 125 points they had just earned, and that it would put them ahead of Slytherin by at least 50. With only a couple of days left in the term, there was no way the other house could catch up to them.

Still smiling, the Headmaster left the common room, Severus close behind him. McGonagall however, had things she wanted to say.

"It was wreckless," she said when they'd gone. "Wreckless is how the rest of the school sees our house, and I would rather not propogate that opinion. Bravery does not have to mean wreckless." She sounded dissappointed. "You could have come to us at any time and we would have helped you. Miss Granger, I'm surprised that was not the first thought that crossed your mind." Hermione looked at the floor, feeling properly chastized.

"But-"

"But what Mr. Weasley?" she said to Fred. "But then you wouldn't have gotten the glory?"

"No-" She gave him a stern look and he closed his mouth.

"I am a Gryffindor too. I stood in your shoes in this very common room in my time at Hogwarts and got lectured by my Head of House about glory seeking and wrecklessness. What you did was admirable. It was clever and brave as the Headmaster said. But at least a few of you did it not because it was the right thing but because you wanted the glory. And in the process you were wreckless. There is so much more to being a Gryffindor than that, and I want you all to think about that before you leave for the summer. With what you did, it won't take long to get out to the rest of the school, and by next year you'll be legends. People will look up to you. I expect the five of you to know how to be a proper example to them of what being a true Gryffindor really means."

She met each of their eyes to make sure they'd each heard her, and then left.

"What a party pooper," Fred said quietly.

"No," said George. "She's right."

"I know."

Harry sighed and then turned to leave.

"Where are you going?" Ron asked.

"To get the same lecture from my dad. I'm sure he's waiting for me."

"What does he know about being Gryffindor?" Ron asked, and as Harry climbed out the portrait hole, he called back, "I'm sure I'm about to find out."

* * *

Harry was nervous as he went down to the dungeons. Classes had been pushed back two hours because the Professors needed time to find a substitute for Defense, and Harry thought his father would be in his office. The entire way down through the castle, he was putting a plan into place. It was better to strike pre-emptively than to just go down there to get chewed out. So with a speech ready which was only poorly practiced on the way down, Harry knocked on his office door and was bade to enter.

Inside, he closed the door and didn't take a seat. His father was looking over a piece of parchment.

"You wanted to see me?"

"No."

Harry furrowed his brows. "You- you don't?"

"Not particularly."

It felt like a rock fell into his stomach then, just like the sorcerer's stone had fallen into his pocket. He was so mad at Harry, that he didn't want to see him or talk to him. His aunt and uncle had been mad at him like that before, but it never bothered him like this.

"I- I know I was wreckless," Harry said, trying to think of all the things McGonagall had just told him ten minutes before. "And I was setting a bad example and what I did isn't anything to be proud of and-" His father looked up at him and he stopped talking.

They locked eyes for several moments and then Severus looked away, back down to the parchment he'd been looking at before Harry had come in.

"I can't be your father."

Harry's mouth was suddenly dry; too dry to swallow. "What?"

"I've tried Harry. I've tried to give you a sense of security. I've tried to show you that you can trust me with anything. I've been there to protect you, to take care of your needs."

"I- I don't-" Harry sputtered, but he didn't know what to say. His head was spinning as though he still had the concussion from the night before. What was happening?

"I am sorry for the way I treated you at the beginning of the year. You did not deserve that. And I have tried to rectify my mistake. I was mistaken in believing I could simply protect you and not get attached, and I was further mistaken in the belief after that that I could just jump into the roll of your father." He seemed flustered and then corrected himself quietly. "No- I was able to jump into the roll of your father. But you were not able to jump into the roll of my son."

"What are you saying?" Harry asked, eyes wet even though the tears hadn't trailed down his face yet.

"I am not accustomed to feeling like a total failure. Neither am I used to feeling the hurt in knowing I am not trusted, or respected enough by my own son for him to come to me when he is in trouble."

"So that's it?" Harry asked, incredulous that things could just end that fast. "You're just going to undo the spell and get rid of me now that Quirril is gone?"

Severus looked away and Harry, full of anger, tipped the wooden visitor chair over. "I hate you! I hate you for making me think everything was going to be ok and all the while you were planning on sending me back to Little Whinging!"

"That is not what I said." He was startled to see Harry so upset.

Tears were trailing down his face now and his face was contorted with anger. "No! You just said I wasn't good enough to be your son because I make mistakes! There's never any second chances for me and I should have known better than to think you would give me any!" Harry pulled open the wooden door and ran down the hall. Maybe it would have been better if Quirril had gotten him after all. Then he wouldn't have to think about how no one wanted him again, and wonder if his parents had even ever really wanted him at all.

He stopped there in the corridor and looked down at his shoes. They were the ones he'd been given for Christmas. Angry, he slipped them off his feet and then walked away, leaving them in the middle of the corridor. He didn't want anything Snape had given him. It was all fake. He only gave it to him because he had to, not because he wanted to. This was all Dumbledore's doing, but Harry felt even worse knowing it was his own fault. If he'd been good enough, or smart enough to just follow the rules, then maybe Snape wouldn't be ashamed to have him as his son.

* * *

Harry wouldn't tell his friends why he was upset. He wasn't interested in talking much at all in fact. He had taken all of the clothing his father- no, Professor Snape had given him and left it in a pile in front of the door to his quarters, and had gone back to wearing the few ratty outfits he had left. It was an issue becuase his old shoes were now too small and hurt his feet, but he didn't want to be reminded of the parent he could have had if he were a better son.

"What are you going to do for the summer?" Harry asked Ron dully. It was Friday afternoon on the last day of classes, and they would be heading back on the train Sunday morning.

"Dunno," Ron said. "Play Quidditch in the paddock, read Quidditch magazines, be bossed around by my mum to do all the chores."

"Sounds nice," Harry said.

"What? Doing chores?"

"Having a home like that to go back to."

"But you get to go back with your dad, right?"

Harry scrunched up his nose.

"You don't mean he's letting you go back to the Muggles?"

"I'd rather go home with Draco Malfoy," Harry said.

"I'll ask mum and dad if you can come and stay. I'm sure they'll say yes. I'll send a letter now and maybe they'll get it by the time we get back to Kings Cross."

"Really?"

"Yeah." Ron sat up from where he'd been laying on the grass on the front lawns with Harry. "Mum won't make you do chores I'll bet. Maybe I"ll get out of them too."

Harry gave a small smile and shook his head, but didn't feel happy.

"What if they say no?"

"They won't."

"Well if they do then I'm going to sneak back on the train and come back here," Harry said. "I bet Hagrid will let me stay. Or I could sneak back into the castle. I know enough secret passages now from Fred and George's map to stay out of sight."

"You're wild Harry," Ron said with a look of awe. "What if the train pulls out right away?"

"Maybe I just won't get on the train. Do you think they check to see that everyone's on?"

"We can ask Fred and George."

At the feast later that night, Fred said that they didn't do roll call to see who was on the train, and Harry and Ron shared a look.

"If mum and dad say yes, I'll just get them to come here and get you," he said. "You going to stay in the common room?"

"I don't know. Maybe somewhere else."

"I can owl you before we come."

Harry sighed. "Sounds like a plan." Ron gave him a sympathetic look, and wished then that his friend could catch a break.

* * *

Hermione didn't approve of Harry's plan, but promised not to tell anyone. She checked out several books and left them with Harry so he could have something to read for a few days. The plan was to stay out of sight and not go to public places like the library or Great Hall. Harry was grateful that his friends cared about him at least.

Sunday Morning he said goodbye to them before they left the castle, and then used his wand to unlock a guest room near Gryffindor tower that had a view of the forrest on the West side of the castle. It was small but it had a bed and a desk and a bathroom, and he was able to send all five locking charms he knew at the door to keep other people out. He looked at his watch and wondered if the train had left yet. When he'd arrived he'd had so much hope of finding a family. With Ron and Hermione he had, but it wasn't the same as what he'd wanted. It wasn't the same as a father. He lay down on top of the covers and stared at the ceiling. No, this wasn't what he'd wanted at all.

* * *

Severus felt guilty. He'd promised Harry he would take care of him. He'd gone through the blood adoption, becoming his father by blood as much as James Potter was. And then he'd crushed the boy's spirit. He'd said as good as he wished he could take it all back. And right now his son, Harry, was with his relatives being treated the way Severus had grown up being treated. Probably worse. It was a guilt that ate at him until he decided to do something about it. He couldn't stand knowing the way the Muggles would fail to take care of him. All because he didn't feel good enough, and had gotten his feelings hurt that Harry hadn't trusted him as much as he'd wanted him to.

So he had left the grounds three days after the students had gone for the summer, and apparated to Little Winging, only to be informed by Lily's horse faced sister Petunia that Harry had never shown up on the train and that they were glad he hadn't. "I don't know what's become of him," she'd told him stuffily, and then shut the door in his face.

Severus had apparated straight to the Burrow and had been told by Molly that they hadn't seen Harry either but that Ron had asked for him to stay the summer and they had just sent an owl off telling Harry that he was welcome.

"You mean you don't know where he is Severus?" Molly asked, confused. "Ronald said you adopted him. What about the spell Albus put on you to see if he's in danger?"

"It has worn off. We did not renew it because Quirril had been captured."

Feeling ashamed, Severus left the Burrow and went back to Hogwarts. If Harry hadn't gone home with the Weasleys or to his aunt and uncle, then it was possible he hadn't left the castle. He went straight to Gryffindor, but the dorms were empty. So was the secret room in the hidden corridor that Harry had hidden in before. He'd already had to admit to Molly Weasley that he had lost Harry, now he was going to have to admit the same to Albus and possibly even Minerva. They were both out of the castle for the day though, and in the mean time he could use the extra few hours to search.

He looked in a dozen guest rooms, checked the study rooms, the room of requirement, and even Fluffy's room on the third floor corridor. Nothing. It wasn't until he thought to check the library that he caught sight of him. He'd been going row to row, looking down each one, and halfway to the back ended up backtracking because he'd seen a mop of black hair. Harry was there browsing the shelves.

"Harry." He was relieved. Relieved that Harry hadn't gotten on the train and somehow gotten off someplace else than Kings Cross, or that he hadn't run away after getting to the train station. He was here, where he was safe. Only Harry didn't look like he felt very safe at that moment. The color had drained from his face and he stood there, frozen halfway between pulling the book from the shelf. Finally he shook his head, eyes wide.

"I'm not going back."

"Harry-" he put his hand up and took a step forward into the aisle but Harry dropped the book and turned and ran. Not wanting to chase him up and down the maze of bookshelves, Severus went straight to the library entrance and waited. Harry appeared a few moments later from the end of a book row, and stopped short upon seeing Severus blocking the entrance.

"Please-" Harry said. "Please don't send me back." The fear in his eyes was like it had been the night Severus had found him huddled at the end of a dungeon corridor with a concussion, crying. It unsettled him because Harry was clearly older now than he had been at the start of the school year. He'd grown a couple of inches and he seemed wiser somehow, even though he was only about to turn 12. Yet he looked as fearful as his eleven year old self. A fear Severus thought had faded after Harry had faced off with Quirril and a boggart so many times.

"Please."

"I will not send you back to the Muggles."

"I don't want to go to an orphanage either," Harry said. "I'm not gonna. I'll run away."

"I had feared you had already run away. You do not know how relieved I am to see that you are here and safe."

"What do you care?" Harry snarked. "You dumped me off already. You don't have to pretend anymore."

"I have never stopped caring. I was- struggling with my own feelings of failure."

"So what? You don't care if you were willing to toss me out like rubbish. I don't matter to you at all. You never did this because you wanted me, you only did it because you didn't have a choice. Well guess what? It's ok," he said, feeling more and more snarky as he spoke. "I'm letting you off the hook. You just leave me alone and I'll take care of myself like I always have. I don't need anyone."

Thick silence hung between them in the warm afternoon air. "I do not wish to be let off the hook," Severus said. He marveled at how much older Harry seemed than when they'd first met. Like he had been handed a serving of life that was too big for such a young boy and had dealt with it anyway.

"Then what do you want?" Harry crossed his arms.

"To apologize for my behavior, and to ask for a second chance. I was wreckless with your feelings for my own benefit. I was setting a bad example for you, and what I said to you last week isn't anything I am proud of."

"You're mocking me," Harry said, words uncertain at the apology he had given Snape earlier being neatly recited back to him.

"I am not. You are right when you say that I only took on this responsibility because I had to. I had to because I had hurt you at the beginning of the year and I wanted to undo the damage I had done. And when you had said I didn't want you, I didn't contradict you. I didn't know you well enough. I had never been a parent, and I have never been particularly good at knowing what I want or of making sense of my own feelings. But I do know that the more I protected you, and the more time I spent with you, the more I grew to know and like you. And it wasn't long before I was proud to hear you refer to me as your father."

"They why?" Harry said, letting his arms fall to his sides, exasperated. "Why did you just throw me aside carelessly? Like it was nothing at all?"

"It was a mistake. One which I wish I could take back. I may not be your first father, but I would be honored if you would accept me as your second."

"You'll just get mad at me again and tell me to leave."

"How can I prove to you that I will not?"

Harry looked into his eyes and saw the sincerity in them. "How do you do that occlumency thing? Or legilmency... how do you look into people's minds?"

"It takes years of practice and dedication to learn. Very few witches or wizards are capable of the magic it takes to learn it."

"Teach me."

"And that will prove to you that I will not abandon you?"

"It'll let me look into your mind to see for myself."

"You have already mastered quite a few third year spells. I do not see why I shouldn't be able to teach you some of the basics of the art if you are willing to put in the time and effort."

He strode forward into the library again and Harry, curious, followed him all the way to the back. He watched as the man pulled several books from a top shelf and then handed them to Harry. "We can start right now."

As they sat in the library that afternoon, reading and discussing how Occlumency and Legilimency worked, Harry wasn't sure if this whole father son thing would work out in the end. They'd both made mistakes, and he was sure they'd make more. He'd never really had a chance to be a son before, and Severus had never had a chance to be a father before. But Harry had a feeling, that if they both worked at it, then they had a chance. That was all he'd ever really wanted anyway. A chance to have a family he could call his own.