Potions and Snitches
Snape and Harry Gen Fanfiction Archive

Loyalties

Harry was having trouble with the Quidditch drill. He thought it might be that he was thinking about it too much, or that he was too conscious of Snape being there, but he couldn't seem to adequately maneuver his broom while concentrating on the Quaffle. Furthermore, he frequently missed it. Finally, he stopped, frustrated, and hovered in mid-air. The day was unseasonable cool, and a light drizzle was not improving his mood.

"Let's just stop. This isn't working."

Snape eyed him unsympathetically. "It is not working because you are too tense to allow it to work. You remind me of that Weasley friend of yours, last year. Every now and then, you have a few minutes where you are coordinated, then you think about it, and you fail."

"I've completely missed the Quaffle five times!"

Snape smirked. "Well, you are also unused to your current proportions. You've overreached, each time." He looked contemplatively at the stands. "Perhaps I shouldn't practice with you," he suggested slyly. "You might maintain this incompetence a game or two into the season."

Harry let out a long breath. "All right. Let's try it again."

They returned to throwing the Quaffle back and forth, while flying up and down the field. Harry was still having problems with it. Snape threw wide, and Harry reached. The wet Quaffle slipped from his fingers. Certain that he would not get a purchase on it, Harry instead used the loose contact to fling it towards Snape. As the ball went flying, he saw something else come off his finger and fall in a flash of green. He had a panicked thought of: The ring! We'll never find it in that thick grass! Unthinking, Harry dove.

A yard above the ground, he snatched up the tiny thing. Once he had bled off enough momentum in an upward arc, he stopped to pant in relief, and heard Snape laughing.

It was a more direct, unabashed laugh than he had previously heard from Snape, except for under the influence of the pink bubble stuff. Harry looked over. Snape was doubled over the Quaffle, nearly falling off his broom.

"What?"

"Oh, you can't fly, you think," Snape said mockingly. "Can't catch a Quaffle. Obviously, you needed a shot of panic, and a small enough target to be worth your while." Snape tossed the Quaffle in the air and caught it. "Let's get out of the rain, boy. There is nothing wrong with your flying!"


Remus was not at dinner that night, as it was a full moon. Harry wondered what the house elves brought him to eat, when he was a wolf. Steak Tartare? Kitfo? Dog food? Though the staff members discussed timetables, enrollments and lesson plans for an hour, the absence of the Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor was conspicuously unmentioned.


On Thursday morning, Harry came out to the kitchen to find Snape sitting at the table and spreading ginger marmalade on toast as he looked at the paper. As soon as Harry had sat down, Snape tossed the front section of the Daily Prophet at him. The top headline read:

Ministry Official Savaged by Werewolf

"I hope he didn't know," Snape said. Harry judged this was about as close to a supportive statement as his father was likely to make.

"I'm sure he didn't," Harry said, scanning enough of the first paragraph to see that the attack appeared to be deliberate. "Remus wouldn't --"

"Don't assume that!" Snape snarled. "I consider myself in truce with him, now, but you are still not to trust him! Lupin does not merit trust; you will only be putting yourself at risk if you forget that."

Harry sighed. It had been a pleasant four days, he reflected. He added sugar and milk to the tea Snape poured for him, and set to reading the article.

Ministry Official Savaged by Werewolf

Rumored unrest among the werewolf population of Britain came to a head, last night, with a savage, and undeniably deliberate, attack on Mr. Hereward Keyne, an under-secretary in the Department for the Control of Magical Creatures. Mr. Keyne, currently at St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, is likely to have contracted lycanthropy as a result of the attack.

"This was a deliberate, premeditated assault," Mr. Chester Stuart, also of the Department for the Control of Magical Creatures, informed the Daily Prophet. "Natural werewolves could not have planned or executed such an attack, which required going into a crowded area, targeting one person among many, and biting to infect, but not kill. This attack could only have been carried out with the benefit of the Wolfsbane Potion." The attack, in Mr. Stuart's opinion, supports what his department has been claiming all along: the Wolfsbane Potion gives a werewolf control, but does not override his elemental savagery.

A letter purporting to be from the WFU (Wolven Freedom Union) claimed WFU responsibility for the attack. The WFU is headed by Randolph Liber (born Ian McAndrew), a werewolf who has recently been preaching violent resistance to the new werewolf edicts.

"For too long we have argued our case to the willfully deaf," stated the letter. "Now we shall give our persecutors hearing so sharp they cannot but hear us. For as long as you hurt us, we will give you our pain. For as long as you confine us with laws, we will confine you with fear. For as long as you treat us as your hunters, we will treat you as our prey. Liberete Lupis!"

The attack and statement mark a worrying trend in non-human unrest since the rise of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge stated that werewolves who had defied the Full Moon Registration Edict would be rounded up for questioning by Ministry Aurors.

Harry tossed the paper down the table.

"And that," he said, "is why I worry about becoming an Auror."

"You would rather have werewolves attacking people."

"They're not right," Harry replied, "but the wrong they are doing is in return for a wrong done to them. And in any case, not everyone who failed to comply with that offensive edict should be regarded as a suspect. I don't want in on either side of this fight."

"But Mr. Stuart is right. A werewolf can still be savage on the Wolfsbane Potion."

"And a human can be savage without being a werewolf at all. The Potion does not change one's human nature -- it only gives the human control of the wolf. I have seen humans kill and torture without any magical excuse. A human that is a werewolf will be no better."

Harry looked down at the paper. The Full Moon Registration Edict. "Remus wouldn't do this," he said softly. "But if I was a werewolf, I might."

"Deliberately maul people?" Snape exclaimed.

"Deliberately maul people from the Department for the Control of Magical Creatures." Harry glowered at the folded paper. "Ministry Official Sava" still showed. "Fudge, if I could get to him." He smiled slightly. "Definitely Fudge."

"Harry," Snape said fiercely, "don't give them sympathy. They are just the new Death Eaters. They are torturing for a cause, and in time they will forget the cause in the delight of torture, of power, of wielding fear." He tapped the headline and the moving picture of a panicked crowd outside Mr. Keyne's garden. "They have already gone beyond the point where their motives might have held pure."

"I still sympathize."

Snape stood. "They have put a death sentence on Lupin," he said. "Remember that."


At Friday night's dinner, Severus seemed unwilling to talk to Remus. He was not the only staff member who avoided it. Remus himself was withdrawn, and did not attempt to initiate conversation with anybody. He responded only briefly to Harry's queries about his plans for the upcoming term. Harry was relieved to realize this was their last such dinner; on Monday, the students would return, and he would be back to sitting at the Gryffindor table with his friends. On the other hand, he thought, with a glance at Snape, he would also be back to having breakfast at the Gryffindor table, with his friends, rather than in Snape's kitchen, with Snape sarcastically reviewing the news or the day's schedule.


"You think I should be kinder to Lupin," Snape said contemptuously, as they were walking back to the dungeons.

"Yes, but ...." Harry shrugged. "I wasn't particularly thinking about it."

"What are you sulking for, then?"

"Sulking?"

"That look you had through dinner."

"Oh." Harry ducked his head nervously. "I was thinking I'd miss having breakfast with you, actually."

Snape stopped so suddenly that Harry took a step past him before noticing. "What?" he said.

"I'll miss having breakfast with you. It followed thinking that I won't miss these dinners at all."

Snape smiled slyly. "Dumbledore," he said, "is the only person who could possibly miss these dinners." They continued on their way.

In Snape's quarters, Snape poured himself some wine. With his back still to Harry, he asked:

"Would you like to visit, occasionally?"

The question was casual; Harry kept his voice equally so.

"Yeah." He saw Snape's back stiffen. "I mean, 'yes, sir,'" he tried, though lightly.

Snape turned back, looking amused. "You won't get through the first week of term without getting in trouble for failing to address Lupin or me properly."

"Ten galleons I will," Harry countered, "but you have to be fair."

"Accepted." Snape sat down in the armchair and leaned back. "Ugh. I should be reviewing supply lists and class rolls."

Harry sat at the near end of the couch. "You have everything," he said; "you hate all the students. There. All set."

Snape let out a bark of laughter. "Not all of them," he said. "Merely most." He sighed. "But at least I no longer have Neville Longbottom."

"For which you are both grateful, I'm sure," Harry observed. Cautiously, he added, "Still, I think it's too bad you weren't nicer to him. He's so good at Herbology that he should have been a natural at potions. If you'd been gentler with him, he'd have learned more."

"I am aware of that, Potter," Snape said sharply. "I see no use in competency that only exists when not under pressure."

"Potter?" Harry repeated incredulously.

"I'm getting ready for term."

"Oh. Well, if he had been able to learn in a supportive environment, he might have been able to do things under pressure, later. I don't think people always need to learn both at once. Some people can't learn both at once."

"Longbottom was an unmitigated disaster in the Potions classroom. I would have dropped him the first year, had I been allowed to."

Harry shrugged. It seemed useless to repeat that Neville might have done better if Snape didn't scare him. Snape obviously considered this Neville's problem, not his.

"I like Neville," he said instead. "He's a nice kid."

Snape smiled slightly, his attention seemingly on his wine. "But even you say 'kid.' He is your age, is he not?

"Almost to the day." Harry felt a surge of wistfulness at the thought. If Voldemort had only attacked Neville, he thought, instead of me, my life might be more normal. He thought of Neville trying to face down Voldemort, and laughed.

"What?"

"Oh, just imagining Neville trying to survive the Dark Lord. It's probably just as well it ended up being me, even if it sucks."

Snape shuddered, then suddenly straightened. "Is this ... that prophecy of Dumbledore's?"

"Right. I either kill him -- Tom, or I die."

"I did not know it was that explicit."

"You didn't?" Harry puzzled over this for a moment. "He didn't tell me not to say." He shrugged. "I figured all of his old crowd had heard it."

"And it could have been Neville Longbottom?"

"He met the original requirements."

Snape grimaced. "My opinion of you as the savior of the wizarding world has suddenly vastly improved."

"Should I be insulted?"

"If you like." Snape looked at him intently. His eyes narrowed. "You will miss having breakfast with me?" he asked incredulously.

"Well, yeah." Harry shrugged. "Oh, you never made me that saffron milk thing."

"On Sunday, perhaps. I need to be up early, tomorrow."


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